No political will to tackle corruption – MDC

icer of the Grain Marketing Board (GMB), was arrested last Friday and charged under the country’s Prevention of Corruption Act. He is alleged to have used workers from the grain company to work on his private farm in northern Zimbabwe. The GMB boss allegedly paid the workers close to Z$1 million out of GMB funds.
The MDC said the arrest of Muvuti confirmed beyond reasonable doubt that the ruling Zanu (PF) party was the “breeding ground of corruption” and unbridled political patronage.
“The MDC believes that his arrest is a token attempt by a cornered regime to be seen to be taking action on a serious scourge that has taken root in the higher echelons of Zanu (PF) and the government,” MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa said.
“The MDC is convinced that this regime has no genuine political will to tackle graft and unmitigated theft that has become the hallmark of this government. Muvuti and ZUPCO boss (Charles) Pearson Nherera are just but small fish in a bigger pond replete with corrupt sharks and tigers.”
The arrest of Muvuti, the head of a key parastatal, comes hard on the heels of the incarceration of Nherera, a chairman of a state-owned bus company on charges of soliciting for a US$85 000 bribe from a manufacturer of buses seeking a tender to supply coaches .
In a speech earlier this month President Robert Mugabe, whose government is pursuing an anti-corruption drive – warned his lieutenants that wrongful self-enrichment will not be allowed to go unpunished.
However, Chamisa said the blitz has only netted small fish as big fish have tended the escape the net.
“Until the ministerial sharks and Zanu (PF) politburo tigers are targeted and brought to account, the war against corruption will be mere rhetoric and sloganeering,” Chamisa said. “Zanu (PF)’s so-called anti-corruption crusade is merely targeting the small fish and leaving the bigger fish to continue looting state resources with reckless abandon.”
Known government and Zanu (PF) officials have been implicated in the looting of farms and farming inputs, the War Victims Compensation fund and the Pay-For-Your-House scheme but they continue to freely roam the corridors of government, the MDC spokesman said.
An explosive UN report has named several cabinet ministers and senior army personnel in the looting of diamond in the DRC while one of Mugabe’s close relatives has reportedly received kickbacks from those who constructed the Harare International Airport.
“Everything has been swept under the carpet while small fish continue to be sacrificed on the altar of political expediency,” Chamisa said. “The nation has not lost its memory and still believes that all these cases should be revisited if this regime is serious in tackling corruption.”
The recently formed Anti-Corruption Commission still has no functioning office, landlines and other basic requirements to enable it to meet its constitutional mandate.
“A genuine commitment to arrest unbridled corruption would basically mean this regime would have to incarcerate itself,” Chamisa said.