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Panganai Kahuni
In the Oxford business and office dictionaries, corruption is defined as “morally depraved and wicked. It is an act influenced by or using bribery or fraudulent activities harmed by errors or alternations.” Corruption (huori) can be defined as, and covers all forms of activities that are obscenely committed by human beings.
In many parts of the world, human beings are treating corruption as an industry because it racks in millions of dirty dollars to corrupt individuals. Corruption is now prevalent in every pursuit such as politics, economics, finance, religion, and public sector management.
In countries were politics, leadership and economics are infested with corruption, creation of elitism, cronyism and bourgeoism is extremely high.
In such instances, corruption has become a cash cow that enriches business leaders, politicians and influential economic players such as stockbrokers, captains of industry and business owners.
Imagine the floating of tenders in government institutions such as hospitals where business owners and institutional leaders work in cahoots to inflate prices of goods and commodities in order to enrich themselves at the expense of patients.
Business owners and hospital management who every Sunday wear imported suits and drive luxury cars to church engage in corrupt activities that result in them getting filthy rich.
Corruption now reigns supreme over the lives of people.
The question is what moral right do these people have to go to church every Sunday or Saturday when in fact their business and management practices are sentencing people to death every day?
The circus we hear about the PSMAS board electing a chairperson in their inner circle that allowed Cuthbert Dube to earn obscene salaries and allowances is not funny.
When one reads the accolades about the new PSMAS board chairman, Luxon Zembe, one wonders where those who selected him get the wisdom to do so given that for many years he did not see the malfeasance at PSMAS.
This is a medical institution that has seen civil servants languish in sickness as they fail to access medical care at a time when the top men could not see that their salaries were affecting service delivery.
Can you imagine a situation where only employees select members of the board and those who contribute eight percent of the stakes have no say in that selection process?
How can this board that for the past five to 10 years failed to correct the vices of corporate misgovernance in PSMAS be trusted to continue to run it?
PSMAS has really become a cash cow for corrupt management.
In politics too, corruption continues to rear its ugly head as it enriches few political elites.
Sadly, the voting public does not seem to see it as they continue to be perennial losers.
The MDC-T is rumoured to be preparing a dossier to be given to the European Union for the colonial grouping to corruptly continue its illegal sanctions on Zimbabwe.
It appears the opposition MDCs are not fighting to eradicate corruption but are politicising corruption in order to corruptly gain political power. People must understand that corruption has become endemic and cuts across the political divide.
Most parastatals are run by executives that are mostly viewed as aligned to ZANU-PF. Conversely, most of the urban local authorities are run by executives that are viewed as aligned to MDC-T.
In recent months, the media have been awash with news of MDC-T suspending councillors whom they suspected to have wrongly exercised their democratic rights by voting for ZANU-PF candidates for the post of mayor.
It must also be noted that the obscene salary scandals came to these alarming rates in the period between 2009 and 2013 when all service ministries were under the purview of the MDC formations.
It is also important to note that the firing of boards does not need the authority of the State President as some quarters in the MDC camps such as Gorden Moyo want the nation to believe.
Parastatal boards are ministerial appointees whose appointments and firing have nothing to do with the State President.
The powers to fire are vested in the minister and that is why Professor Jonathan Moyo and Minister Mavhaire were able to fire the boards under their ministries.
Professor Moyo was also able to institute investigation of the goings-on in ZBC operations that showed that ZBC had become a cash cow for senior management.
It is my observation that the MDC formations failed to capitalise on the corrupt business practices exercised by parastatal CEOs to gain moral authority during their tenure in the inclusive government (IG). Surprisingly, the legion of lawyers in the MDC camp such as Biti and Professor Ncube failed to utilise their knowledge of ethical corporate governance during their tenure in the IG to expose the malfeasance in parastatals.
The MDC formations chose to be part of the gravy train as they allowed corruption to become endemic for the period of five years.
During the IG era the ministries that today are exposed to be riding on obscene salaries were all run by the MDC formations.
If the MDC formation ministries were really democrats and anti-corruption legions, why did they let the scourge reach this sickening magnitude?
Even the West, especially Britain and America, failed to guide their surrogates to ethically clean up the mess that would have gained them an opportunity for their neo-colonial agenda.
For Zim-Asset to be successful, the ZANU-PF Government must continue to expose the obscene salary scandals and take appropriate action in order to gain public confidence.
Every ZANU-PF cadre must know that covering or concealing any corrupt activity has catastrophic consequences.
It is not time for Zanu PF to shy away from explosion and punishing any management, politician or business leaderships that are corrupt.
The corruption vice that has engulfed our economy in both the public and private sectors needs no vicarious authority or politicisation but a holistic, courageous and honest fight to eradicate it.
The public too must stop being driven by divisive emotions and collectively demand action against those involved in the abuse of public resources.
It is now time for all to call a spade a spade in fighting this cancerous disease called corruption.
Panganai Kahuni is a political socio-economic commentator
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