Corruption is equal to sanctions

Terence Zimwara

The debate on the state of the economy has often been politicized and many unsuspecting commentators have entirely blamed sanctions as the real course of the economic depression of the last decade.

Indeed the United States and European Union countries have imposed what they like to call 'restrictive measures' on Zimbabwe and officials have seized on this as the cause of the economic collapse.

In the meantime corporate malpractices and general corruption have tended to receive less scrutiny suggesting that these issues were not seen as serious.

Over the last few weeks however, the whole Zimbabwean media has been on a crusade against corporate greed and public enterprises like the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC), Premier Service Medical Aid Society (PSMAS) and Harare City Council have been targeted.

Shocking details of remuneration packages have emerged, with officials awarding themselves packages of hefty salaries against a background poor service delivery.

Tendai Mahachi Harare City’s town clerk is reported to earn $37000 per month while he along with the rest of the city’s administration officials earn a combined figure of $500 000 per month in salaries and benefits.

Happison Muchechetere the suspended chief executive officer earned a cool $27000 per month at ZBC yet ironically the same state broadcaster had gone for close to year without paying salaries to its employees.

Cuthbert Dube, the chief executive officer of PSMAS has earned the ire of citizens after it was revealed he was earning a staggering $230000 per month when the medical aid society itself was reeling from a $38 million debt.

While the media onslaught has exposed these three individuals, it is only logical to conclude that this is just a tip of the iceberg, the real culprits remain unexposed.

What is even more scary are reports that Cuthbert Dube is still in the office or that he is in line for a huge severance package.

The town clerk, Tendai Mahachi was suspended after revelations of his salary yet the government reinstated him immediately after the suspension.

Similarly there were reports of corruption at the technically insolvent national airline, Air Zimbabwe but at the time of writing there has not been any form remedial action taken.

What is becoming clear especially from the organisations mentioned above is that their poor performances are certainly linked to the reported poor corporate governance at these institutions.

Such poor performance is seen in the pothole strewn roads, non collection of refuse or failure to provide accommodation to the growing housing waiting list in the case of Harare City Council.

For ZBC the result has been the very poor quality of programmes on national television or the embarrassing episode of ZBCTV failing broadcast the just ended CHAN tournament where the Zimbabwe team performed beyond expectations.

The desire by those running these organizations is to enrich themselves quickly before the next batch managers replaces them. There is no accountability and more importantly there is no deterrent at all.

Last year Deputy Finance minister Samuel Udenge acknowledged this during symposium on Anti- corruption and bribery that the country did not have a strong enough deterrent to prevent would be criminals from engaging corrupt practices.

Cuthbert Dube may have robbed PSMAS policyholders for several years but there has not been any talk of him going to court for his misdeeds.

The same goes for all those whose corrupt practices have been exposed, there is little chance of them being prosecuted until the Prosecutor General’s office has been furnished with dockets of the alleged crimes by the police.

The Zimbabwe government owns or controls several dozen commercial and non commercial enterprises and if most of them are run similarly to how the above mentioned corporations then it quite it probable that corruption at the companies may have played a greater role in ruining the economy than sanctions or the so called restrictive measures.

In fact efforts aimed at revitalizing the economy will fail as long as individuals entrusted with the job of executing policy are more concerned with their selfish needs rather than national needs.

It is one thing for government to tout ZimAsset as the panacea to the economy’s troubles and another to actually see the strategic plan working.

The government will have to deal with corruption head on first before it enunciates new economic blueprints because corruption can be as debilitating as sanctions effectively rendering much vaunted ZimAsset another usefuless document.