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WE welcome the pronouncement by Zanu-PF’s highest decision-making body outside Congress, the Politburo that there be decisive action against corruption which the ruling party, in its winning election manifesto, identified as a major threat to winning the goals of the people.
Chapter Five of the manifesto that covers ‘Threats to Winning the Goals of the People’ singles out corruption in local authorities as a major cancer.
“Of particular concern is the rampant corruption in local authorities which interface directly with the people on a daily basis in terms of the delivery of key public services. The victims of corruption whether in the public or private sector; the professional, NGO or religious sectors are always the people. This is why zero-tolerance of corruption has become a national priority.”
The Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation, the economic blueprint expected to guide economic revival over the next five years, also identifies corruption as the country’s number one enemy.
While over the past few weeks, the media have unearthed reports of graft in the public sector, the scourge is also rampant in the private sector, and it was gratifying to hear President Mugabe reiterate zero tolerance to graft and call for significant action against all perpetrators in the private and public sectors.
This intervention by the country’s highest office, and the party’s highest decision-making organ could not have come at a better time given conflicting signals from some senior party officials whose actions and pronouncements were dampening the spirits of a nation that expects to see all those profiting at the expense of the people get their comeuppance.
Many hope the salary-gate dragnet will not be like a spider’s web that catches flies and mosquitoes leaving larger vermin like lizards and rats to run riot.
Indeed there should be no sacred cows.
What is quite disturbing about the emerging reports of graft are not only the colossal amounts involved, and that the reports emanate from entities struggling to deliver services to the people, but that the reports have touched mainly critical public enterprises that are supposed to drive the implementation of Zim Asset.
Parastatals and State enterprises are in critical sectors of the economy that Government reckoned were too important to be left to the private sector, and it is in such sectors that some miscreants chose to line their pockets at the expense of the nation.
Once again we remind the powers that be that the nation is highly sceptical, they need to see heads and torsos roll where corruption is proven to have taken place.
We urge the police to move fast when they receive the reports, and not spring to action only after media scrutiny as happened in the Air Zimbabwe case.
The same goes for the Prosecutor General and his team at the National Prosecuting Authority.
It is not enough to say they NPA is waiting for documentation from police when the nation knows the PG has it within his power to order police to investigate where there is reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed.
Once again, we welcome the statement of intent from the Politburo, the reassurance from President Mugabe and hope everyone in the party and Government will join hands to fight the scourge that has worsened the effects of the West’s illegal sanctions regime that we want to see gone.
Online Reporter