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Herald Reporter
Business executives are being threatened with arrest by criminals pretending to be Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) commissioners and being hoodwinked into believing that their cases will be dropped if they pay bribes.

Zacc is now hunting down the criminals and has advised businesspeople on how the system works, so they can quickly report if they are being pestered by criminals.

Zacc spokesperson Commissioner John Makamure  said the anti-corruption body would work closely with mobile phone operators to track down those making the threats.

“The Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission has received numerous reports of people masquerading as Zacc commissioners and threatening to arrest executives in the public and private sector for corrupt practices.

“Using mobile numbers that we suspect have been registered using the details of deceased persons or lost identity documents, these bogus commissioners claim that files had been opened at Zacc and then demand bribes for the cases not to proceed.”

Comm Makamure said ZACC had clearly laid-down procedures of handling investigations and commissioners were not directly involved.

Investigations are done by staff members who work in the investigation department, not by commissioners whose job is to provide policy direction only.

The procedure of investigations is that when a case is reported, it is assigned a reference number and a team of investigators.

Comm Makamure said it is the investigators who have contacts of suspects and witnesses.