Speaking to The Zimbabwean, Dube said mines minister Walter Chidhakwa had revealed he was offered bribes soon after his appointment and failed to act on the matter. It showed, he said, that government was not committed to tackling and eradicating corruption.
He accused government and public office bearers of paying lip service to fighting corruption.
Said Dube: “Government is not serious about tackling corruption considering that there is no commitment at any level, including at ministerial level, to have such serious allegations reported to the police and investigated.”
Corruption in Zimbabwe remains very high according to the latest report released by Transparency International in their 2013 Corruption Perception Index.
Zimbabwe was ranked 157 out of the 177 assessed African nations, implying that the country was the most corrupt in the SADC region.
The scourge is rampant in public education, health, mining and the judiciary, among others.
Dube said this reflected complacency in dealing with corruption at the top level – an indicator that the most corrupt members of society were those that had power and were at the top.
He implored the mines minister to make a police report and call for investigations into the bribe allegations.
Mines minister Chidhakwa was recently quoted saying that he had been approached barely eight weeks into office by individuals who wanted to bribe him.
“I can’t tell you what transpired, but what I can tell you is that the private sector approaches many people. The issue of corruption should not be viewed only from the recipient of the bribe, it must also be seen from the perspective of the giver, as they are both corrupt,” said Chidhakwa.
Dumisani Mthombeni, founder and director of Zero Tolerance Wise Consultancy in Zimbabwe, a non-governmental organisation working towards promoting zero tolerance to corruption, said the minister should be the trend-setter in blowing the whistle on corrupt dealings.
“Although we applaud government efforts in fighting corruption, more needs to be done in terms of bringing the culprits to book,” he said.
“Corruption thrives on silence and the minister should ensure that this issue is given the attention it deserves and pursued until the end so that justice prevails,” he said.
James Bayanai, founder of the Zimbabwe Youth Development Foundation Trust, said the recent developments brought a ray of hope.
“Investigations should be done. Rhetoric will never get us anywhere as a nation and failure to investigate the issue further will see a proliferation of corruption in the sector,” he said, citing the Godwills Masimirembwa corruption claims as an example of allegations that had died a natural death.
Officially opening the 8th parliament of Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe revealed that the former Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation boss had been named in a $6m scam.
The former ZMDC boss is alleged to have extorted the money from a Ghanaian company that sought to invest in Marange diamond fields in an agreement with the ZMDC.
However to date, the allegations have not been verified and the findings have not been disclosed.
Economist Prosper Chitambara of the Labour and Economic Development Research Institute of Zimbabwe said corruption increased the cost of doing business and scared away investors.
“The country risks losing interested investors and will see reduced foreign direct investment due to the unscrupulous conduct of allocating tenders and contracts. The impacts of corruption are felt by the majority poor because the cost of doing business increases the prices of goods and services,” said Chitambara.
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