Chronicle Editor
Stephen Mpofu, Perspective
YES, never, ever never must not silver, not bronze either but our golden motherland Zim, won back from Western imperialist colonisers with the ransom prize of the precious blood of our heroes and heroines in the protracted armed revolution must become a subject of nose thumbing by potential international investors and partners in our economic and social development at the behest of corrupt Zimbabweans especially those who are supposed to be guardians of the laws of the land.
Right now leading opinion in high legal circles points to an urgent need for police officers in particular suspected of engaging in corrupt activities to be tried at the High Court instead of at lower courts so that the highest possible sentences are meted out to those found guilty and also to serve as a warning to potential corrupt pigs that the law of our land will brook no nonsense from those who subvert it by engaging in unethical acts to satiate their greed.
A few months in jail or a few years in incarceration for corruption do not instil the fear of the law and of God in potential corrupt hearts.
Only the High Court will do the trick so that the good name of our country is not besmirched by get-rich-quick characters with the result that Zimbabwe becomes a no-go area for those intending to bring their hard-earned cash to help develop our country with handsome dividends in the form of profits going back to investors.
In the circumstances, an imperative need and urgency appear to exist for the Parliament of Zimbabwe to promulgate no-nonsense laws against corruption before the scourge gets completely out of hand with law abiding citizens being tarred corruption brush as the actual criminals.
Measures announced a few days ago by the Bulawayo City Council in a bid to end once and for all the ghettoing of the centre of the City of Kings and Queens would appear to point to the kind of remedial measures needed against rampant, such as corruption where operational decency is disregarded.
For many years before and after independence in 1980, Bulawayo was renowned as Zimbabwe’s cleanest city so that an ultimatum issued a few days ago by the Bulawayo City Council for informal traders, kombi, bus and pushcart operators and those involved in illegal car wash business in the city centre to cease their illegal activities by yesterday is ample evidence that things went haywire under the nose or noses of sitting councillors until the current city council under Mayor David Coltart saw it fit to read the Riot Act and in the process restore the good image of that the City of Kings and Queens had enjoyed for so many years.
With vendors selling food at undesignated places it is anyone’s guess that, with cholera also a big menace in our country right now the possibility of the disease spreading uncontrollably could not be ruled out if every food trader did what they wished anywhere at any time in the absence of control measures.
While it might be interesting for political analysts in particular to discover why things went to that state of dilapidation in Bulawayo, the most important thing, however, is for the sitting councillors and their mayor to ensure that those who defy the ultimatum automatically shove themselves in the shade, as it were, business-wise for the city’s good image and health standards for all its citizens.
Harare City Council has acquired tractors to clean up city streets of any litter with the potential of making the country’s capital and seat of government an eyesore.
As the second largest city in the country after the Sunshine City, Bulawayo residents should support their council’s clean-city measures now in place — and this means also that the city’s residents ought also to ensure that households desist from littering streets so that Bulawayo retains its status of being Zimbabwe’s cleanest city.
In all the above discourse cleanliness, good health and longer lives for all Zimbabweans must take precedence over individual political expedience.
Online Reporter