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One of the weaknesses of the current anti-corruption thrust is the failure to impound money, cars and properties that cannot be explained

Nick Mangwana View from the Diaspora

Without doubt corruption is an enemy against the development of our country. It rewards greediness and crookedness. The current scenario in Zimbabwe allows crooks to brandish their ill-gotten wealth with impunity and spite the poor and long suffering public.

As promised, this week we continue with the issue of declaration of assets and interests by public officials in Zimbabwe. But first, it helps to define who our public officials are. The widely accepted definition is as follows;

“A public official is anyone in a position of official authority that is conferred by a state, i.e. someone who holds a legislative, administrative, or judicial position of any kind, whether appointed or elected.”

It is these individuals whose assets and dealings should be disclosed if Zimbabwe is to combat corruption and survive as a nation.

zanu-PF also needs to fight corruption to the death to regain or maintain the people’s goodwill. If the main achievement of disclosure is the endowment of the public confidence in public administration, then that is a great outcome. But people are not confident of what they don’t know. They are only confident if there is transparency.

One of the most painful things in the Zimbabwean political discourse is the whispers, innuendo and political conjecture.

Politicians who are in legitimate business are maligned for building a Hollywood mansion. These politicians need protection. The only way they can be protected is when their wealth is easily justified. The full scope of their other income is well documented and they are absolved from any implied suggestion of unjust enrichment. By protecting the innocent ones, the profligate thieves can be exposed.

Naturally, politicians and public officials will divorce like everyone else. The murky world of divorce is normally played out in public. This tends to remove the privacy veil and expose how much some public officials have. Again it is possible that this wealth would have been accumulated from a prodigious financial prudence. But it may also be true that it is gains of illegitimate enterprise. But going forward, there is a need for a system to reveal this and not wait for the spite of divorce. That is not only for Parliament. This is for every public official.

It is clear that an expectation of self-restraint by public officials has completely failed. We need a “comply and explain route”. A person is expected to comply with the rules and if there is anything there that does not look right or if there is an aspect of their lifestyle that does not look right, then the nation is owed an explanation.

The public wants this for two main reasons. These are firstly, for the avoidance of conflict of interest and secondly, for monitoring to avoid corruption and organised crime. As we declared last week, those who value their privacy should be nowhere near public office and see if the nation would bother them.

Zimbabwe needs a financial disclosure system and anything that cannot be explained should be forfeited to the state. Otherwise the country can be used to wash dirty money. According to UN Convention against Corruption, Article 8, which provides some loose guidance on disclosure, the information declared should include substantial income from relatives. So the basis of not providing information on gifts from the “first and second degree” relatives is not solid here. That is why it is being argued against.

The technical guide to the same Convention suggests that there should be a year-on-year comparison of the financial position of an official. Meaning it should be clear what someone owns this year which they did not own last year. This will make it obvious that their financial position has escalated therefore calling for a closer look.

The reason why people hide their loot outside the country is that they are worried that the State would have access to it and confiscate it. But unless the current indifference by the authorities as well as their choice of rhetoric over action is overcome, there is no need to hide anything. That is why this country saw some people complaining of being left out of the so-called Zimbabwe’s richest 50 people. In other countries, being on that list would be a curse of the devil. It would be inviting revenue collecting authorities and all sorts of scrutiny. People run away from it. But not in Zimbabwe. People go to a press conference with wads of cash and nobody bothers to ask to track the trail. Even in cases where the spoor is leading directly to a dodgy or inflated tender. The duty to prove the source of income lies with the one who has the money. We don’t want organised crime in our country.

One of the weaknesses of the current anti-corruption thrust is the failure to impound any wealth that cannot be explained.

Prison is great and should be the first cut of the whip. The second should be restorative justice. But as is the case the world over, criminal cases should normally be proved beyond reasonable doubt. That weakens the chances of a conviction as a good lawyer only needs to sow a seed of reasonable doubt to attain an acquittal. When it comes to restorative justice, the burden of proof lies with the owner of the asset. They have to prove that it was legitimately procured and that the sources were legit. If they can’t do that then they should lose it to the sovereign. It is this two-pronged approach that will stop the spiting of the poor by flaunting that which was deprived the public purse.

A lacklustre fight against corruption causes one major damage; public confidence. This has far reaching consequences. It affects confidence in the financial sector, confidence in central Government, in the police and basically confidence in all Government and quasi-Governmental agencies. The country cannot afford this. It is clear what this does. Just look at Zimbabwe’s banking sector.

Public officials should act in the interest of the public. And those actions should not be incompatible with their responsibility to deliver public duty. It is only transparency that helps militate against conflicts of interest.

Public accountability by the political class need to be enhanced. It is there, but remains weak. This columnist is normally opposed to tampering with our new Constitution because it legislates for almost every scenario. Take for example s194(b) which places an obligation on public administrators to promote “efficient economical use of resources . . .” It sets a framework for a constitutional challenge against a public official who is wasting public money by choosing a ridiculous lifestyle at an astronomical cost to the public purse.

In countries like Colombia, public officials are obligated by the constitution to declare their assets under oath before occupying a position and leaving it. Zimbabwe does not need to go the constitutional amendment route, but can enact an enabling legislation within the existing constitutional regime. This legislation should also make it obligatory for public officials to register all their outside interests. This writer proposes that the best place to warehouse declarations of assets and interests by public officials is an entity within the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC). It is common cause that the previous commission had integrity issues. There are reports that the current one will be snarling and showing its teeth soon. Well, we have heard the bark. We await eagerly to see the bite. If this commission does what it is supposed to do, then it is independent enough to be the overseer of this register. Currently, Parliament is having its own which few bother with. It is fragmented to have pockets of little registers all over the place. Everyone who fits the definition of a public official from judges to senior army personnel should have their assets registered and evaluated from year to year. It should not be confined to one pillar of state, but all three. The public needs to have confidence in the integrity of the whole State.

Some are already saying that this will make ZACC too powerful and therefore likely to corruptly peddle favours and become the hub of corruption itself. But appointment of ZACC commissioners has been de-monopolised. ZACC commissioners are publicly recruited by Parliament and the President appoints eight out of at least 12 names submitted to him. This makes these appointments joint legislature and executive appointments. They remain accountable to the people through Parliament and therefore while they have overarching reach their power will be people accountable.

If this is combined with joint wealth monitoring through joint operations between ZACC, ZIMRA with the support of the police, there will be a step-up in public confidence. There is a direct link between wealth monitoring and the maintenance of public registers for public officials. Having these available publicly online (like many countries do) would even boost public confidence further. Those that value their privacy should stay away from public office.

Without doubt corruption is an enemy against the development of our country. It rewards greediness and crookedness. The current scenario in Zimbabwe allows crooks to brandish their ill-gotten wealth with impunity and spite the poor and long suffering public. This makes the public cynical towards the same authorities they elect.

If this is allowed to continue then Zimbabwe is breeding a serious anti-establishment spirit where you see people celebrate riotous behaviour such as the chasing around of police officers by hooligans at a football match.

This is dangerous.