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THE report that seven Vehicle Inspection Depot officers have joined 10 Harare Municipality Traffic Police officers under probe for corruption is very good news for Zimbabweans tired of graft. President Mugabe has called for zero tolerance to corruption, which is a problem we need to face head-on.
It has become so ingrained in some of our institutions that some people believe that bribes are their rightful dues.
Corruption bleeds the economy as resources meant to benefit ordinary citizens end up stashed in the pockets of a few ruthless individuals. Some foreign-owned companies siphon revenue into offshore accounts.
Just getting service from some Government departments is frustrating as you are expected to fork out a bribe. Yet these are all funded through taxes paid by the ordinary citizen supposed to fork out a kickback.
In the past many calls for the curbing of corruption have been made but it appears that the will and intention largely remained on parallel tracks.
Some VID and traffic police officers from the national and municipal forces have repeatedly and publicly been declared as being very corrupt.
Yet it appeared that those in charge could only watch helplessly while hapless motorists and other civilians were fleeced by some dishonest law enforcement officers.
The inertia was puzzling, leading to speculation that the rot went all the way to the top.
We need a new culture where corruption is not tolerated and the only way to do that is to send an unequivocal message that perpetrators will be caught and prosecuted.
That is why we hope that these two developments signal a new era where the axe falls on perpetrators.
The setting up of CCTV by the municipal authorities demonstrates a resolution to tackle the problem and we highly recommend the resourcefulness of whoever came up with the idea.
We hope that the sweep in the two organisations is just the beginning. We hope to see more offenders named, shamed and punished, irrespective of their position and status.
Let this not be the usual pretence where a few sacrificial lambs are offered before the campaign fizzles out. The efforts must be sustained, consistent and know no sacred cows.
We hope those in charge of these institutions are serious about rooting out corruption and the public will soon be reaping the rewards of that as services are granted fairly.
And it must not stop with the VID and Harare Municipal Police. Corruption is a cancer that has spread throughout the body of the country’s operations and no single state arm can be said to be clean.
The Registrar-General’s Passport Office, ZRP Traffic and nurse training institutions deserve special mention as perceived bastions of corruption.
Our columnist Mai Jukwa called for renewal in parastatal leadership at a time when some bosses have overstayed.
ZBC is a case in point where the management and the board are alleged to have awarded themselves huge perks while the organisation became mired in debt, resulting in workers going for months without pay.
We hope the forensic audit that Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo ordered at ZBC Holdings is already being carried out and the results will be made public soon.
We also hope that similar sweeps will be executed at other under-performing state enterprises.
There are several other places where Zimbabweans would like to see effective results, not the announcement of intentions:
What happened to the call for a financial and means audit for police officers?
What is the ZRP doing about their traffic police who stop the same kombis everyday without any apparent improvement in passenger safety?
Why are touts back in the commuter omnibus ranks?
What happened to the former MPs who reportedly abused the Constituency Development Funds during the tenure of the GNU?
Were the accounts that they presented ever audited to verify the claims that they made?
The list is endless and we intend to keep asking until we get answers.
Online Reporter