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A CROSS-SECTION of newspapers recently carried reports in which President Mugabe was said to have been “dismayed” by the scandalous salaries public enterprise CEOs and some heads of parastatals paid themselves.This followed a series of such salary exposes starting towards the end of last year. The issue was apparently raised in Cabinet, leading to a request for salary schedules of parastatal management and allowances for board members.
The President’s comments were received as an endorsement of this decision. It was interpreted to mean that the government was concerned about the Salarygate scandal and ready to remedy the situation.
We were, therefore, surprised on Monday this week that Acting President Joice Mujuru had complained about the media’s role in exposing corruption in parastatals and other government-linked entities. She reportedly said the exposes were the work of Zanu-PF’s enemies seeking to destroy the revolutionary party and the government from within.
She reportedly warned a women’s meeting in Chinhoyi to be wary of such reports because issues of corruption should be left to the government to deal with.
Predictably, there were furious reactions from tax payers. This is understandable. If the government has been discussing these issues, as the Acting President suggests, then we have seen no evidence of a change of behaviour. People have waited for too long for the government to demonstrate its commitment to fight the scourge of corruption. To date, there doesn’t appear to be any decisive action.
The media is doing the barest minimum in reporting this widespread malfeasance. It is playing its watchdog role over what appears to be abuse or misallocation of public resources. It does not have executive powers to cause the arrest or prosecution of any individual, whether in the private or the public sector. It can only report and people expect their government to lead the way in terms of taking corrective measures.
We therefore believe the Vice President has gravely misread the national mood. Or at least the timing of her remarks was very bad given that she made them in her capacity as Acting President. The comments had the effect of undermining what President Mugabe had just said in expressing his “dismay” over the obscene salaries and requesting salary schedules for management in the country’s 79 parastatals and government-linked entities, as well as the 92 local authorities.
Vice-President Mujuru may well be correct that there are people who want to destroy the ruling party and the government. That war has been going on for a long time, including sanctions which were imposed to undermine the Zanu-PF government and discredit the land reform programme.
However, having said that, Cde Mujuru has to demonstrate that the stories of corruption in the local media are totally false, malicious, without substance and concocted in their entirety and entirely by the enemies of Zimbabwe.
When the gross salaries of parastatal executives and CEOs of local authorities are juxtaposed with the criminal lack of service delivery, it becomes very clear that we have a big challenge as a nation.
There is need for a thorough investigation of these allegations. Vice-President Mujuru should be calling for such a process in support of the President. She should quit trying to stop the media from reporting what is self-evidently in the public interest.
At the very least, we would expect Vice- President Mujuru to state categorically where she stands vis-a-vis the fight against corruption before she further undermines her own standing as a national leader.
Online Reporter