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Joram Nyathi Group Political Editor
INFORMATION, Media and Broadcasting Services minister Professor Jonathan Moyo has spoken strongly against the scandalous and corrupt salaries earned by a number of parastatal heads in this country. He said the salary structures were out of sync with the new economy envisaged under the Government’s Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (Zim-Asset).
This followed the unfolding saga of outrageous and morally-repugnant salaries paid to PSMAS, ZBC and Harare City Council executives which start from a seemingly huge figure of $15 000 at Town House in Harare before they spiral riotously to a jaw-locking $230 000 for former PSMAS chief executive officer Cuthbert Dube.
It all began with revelations late last year that while ZBC employees had gone for nearly six months without getting a salary (allegedly because the parastatal was broke), its CEO Happison Muchechetere was getting his pay as it fell due at the end of every month. With its trappings of office, it came to nearly $40 000.
It has since turned out that the cancer is pervasive and runs deeper than what was previously thought. Executives in most parastatals and local authorities live in what President Robert Mugabe once angrily described as the “sphere of angels” while their juniors, who do the proverbial donkey work, are paid wages far below the poverty datum line or can go for months without so much as a token of appreciation.
In the case of the PSMAS, what makes the pay saga for the executives such an unconscionable act of treachery is not just the parlous state of the economy but the fact that the money that Dube and his avaricious executive were paying themselves came from subscriptions paid to the society, whose 794 000 members are mostly impoverished civil servants currently fighting Government to raise their salaries to a miserly poverty-linked rate of $540 per month.
There are already calls now for a thoroughgoing independent investigation into the operations of all Government-linked entities in the mould of the Sandura Commission in the late 1980s, which gave us the Willowgate motor vehicle scandal. The calls are very legitimate.
Professor Moyo was clear that this irresponsible behaviour could not be allowed to go unchecked, amid indications that looting of public resources was a cancerous plague in most parastatals.
He indicated that this unbridled greed was partly responsible for the price distortions in the whole economy, where the most basic item in a shop commands a price of $1. Some weekly newspapers sell for $2.
Prof Moyo said these ridiculous prices and salary perks reflected a hangover from a bygone hyper-inflationary era and could not be justified in an economy where we are using multi-currencies.
After all is said, the nation waits with bated breath to see what is going to be done. We are here dealing with a national scourge which has left a majority of our people not only living in hopeless poverty but has killed conscience in those with political connections.
The disease is pervasive even in the private sector, so government cannot shirk its responsibility to deal decisively with this vulgar abuse of public office by harkening to opportunistic calls for wholesale privatisation of strategic national institutions. It must rise to the occasion; it must restore faith in the nation that it is in control; it must be the Hercules who cleans this Augean stable in our life time.
It was Karl Marx who observed more than a century and a half ago in his theories of social and economic development that philosophers had long interpreted the world. What was left was to change it, he said. Reports about the plunder of state-linked enterprises are not new. What can only be new would be if government were to take exemplary action against this national abomination.
It is not enough for the political leadership to talk about a “new economy” and a “new society” while condoning old behaviours. There is need to inculcate a new ethos in the way we run business, whether it’s a parastatal, a retail shop or a school. There is need for a new culture of national service rather than private entitlement to public resources.
The culture of greed simply has to end. Those accused of grand malfeasance must face their just deserts before the law. In short, it is not enough to dissolve boards and still leave the culprits to prosper from the proceeds of their perfidious actions.
In addition, there has been a lot of talk about implementing a performance-based management practice. How far is that project? Is it being implemented? If not, why is that so? If yes, are we seeing any positive results?
A legitimate expectation of this performance-based remuneration is that it will come with a clear and easily enforceable code of conduct so that business leaders develop a new culture of doing things — a culture of transparency, accountability and awareness that they hold their grand offices in trust.
For once, let Government demonstrate that it fully understands the meaning of the simple verb “implement”. It must follow through on its threats to deal with those who have broken the law in a fair but firm manner, without fear or favour. That is one way to thwart the machinations of those calling for a boycott of utility bill payments.
A very unfortunate upshot of the exposure of this malfeasance and profligacy in the parastatals is that it has given opportunistic ammunition to the pro-sanctions lobby to claim that all our problems are of our own making — the usual mantra — corruption and mismanagement.
Fortunately it is a fact that sanctions and corruption are not mutually-exclusive and we have discovered that they can indeed co-exist. But it is also a reality that sanctions constitute the single biggest millstone on our national development agenda and must be fought by all means necessary while we deal with those who abet and compound the national crisis through corruption at home.
Online Reporter