On 18-Apr-1980 Harare’s Rufaro Stadium played host to a historical event that oversaw the transfer of political power from a white minority government to the majority black natives. Zimbabweans from all walks of life and international dignitaries including Bob Marley, a global reggae music icon and proponent of black people’s rights and independence graced the event with high hopes for the black population long held hostage to the vices of Ian Smith’s white minority regime. Unfortunately, on that day too, was the proclamation of corruption as a political career. Since that day, ordinary citizens face the brutality of corruption daily.
Collapsing critical infrastructure is a grime reminder of the ghoulish nature of the Zimbabwean political leadership. The treacherous ZANU PF led government systematically denies basic human rights to ordinary citizens and certain population groups. Daily, at every level of governance, both brazen and cunning methods are employed to take away rights and resources from ordinary citizens.
Government led by ZANU PF is the pillar of a brutal attack on basic human rights of ordinary Zimbabweans; it has weakened checks and balances and created weak economic systems, deficient health care systems, poor education infrastructure, tribalized, politicised and weakened criminal justice systems, enforced inadequate environmental protections, and sacrificed public safety.
Dreams of freedom and liberty were sacrificed at the altar of the 1980 celebrations when career politicians who cared more for personal enrichment than public service found a home. Under the leadership and behest of Robert Mugabe, a new political regime was established – corruption turned out to be its foundation: tyranny of the majority, tribalism and marginalisation and abuse of certain population groups became a safety net that shielded Mugabe’s Shona dominated government from scrutiny.
Sadly, as the white minority government rightfully stepped out, in came a new breed of politicians, these were black narcissists who feared losing power than loved serving the public; because they fully understood their power came from one man, Mugabe, and that the only way of keeping it was loyalty to him, they served him and were prepared to do anything to protect their acquired power.
Polarising and unethical political practices dominate ZANU PF’s rule; the party has presided over wild, damaging changes to the political space; the mainstream political regime – now embraced by the main opposition – is a cultic, undemocratic feature with no room for dissent. Politicians are obsessed with power for its own sake while the poor continue to suffer the indignity of poverty linked to lack of access to power due to marginalisation from decision-making processes.
Corruption has been normalised and turned into a highly paying career for the powerful, the connected, and greedy, but with devastating effects for the most vulnerable in society. The impact of crooked systems and institutions is the institution of policies that disempower and deprive communities of their right to access resources, their power, pride, and dignity.
Zimbabwe bears the marking of a dying soul of any society – holding in high esteem material things yet removing individual and institutional accountability. In independent Zimbabwe it is hard to get rich by innovation but easier by looting.
Whenever it is not an expectation to explain the source of one’s income and riches, doors open wide to impropriety; where figurative speech is routinely used to minimise or downplay the seriousness of corruption and its impact on society, where the judiciary system is compromised and wilfully protects those who act with disdain in all matters legal and law enforcement agents are accomplices to corruption, innovation suffers, and with it the death of development is proclaimed.
Excuses have acted as roadblocks on the highway to fighting corruption in Zimbabwe. Making excuses and blaming imperialism instead, is deflection, protection, and denial that only helps the leaders and the connected, not the ordinary citizen. Call a spade a spade, endemic corruption in Zimbabwe – and not imperialism – is a byproduct of systemic failures resulting from incompetence of the black Zimbabwean leadership.
Regrettable systemic failures effectively endorsed corruption to form a parallel economy; what we see is the integration, accommodation, and acceptance of corruption as a pseudo-payment scheme that complements salaries of otherwise poorly renumerated public servants. When public servants, including law enforcement agents are not ashamed to take bribes and indeed initiate such transactions, society is irretrievably damaged.
Denying the truth does not extinguish it. Until we are prepared to face the truth that lack of accountability is the formulation of the Zimbabwean State and father to the unashamed normalisation of corrupt activities by the government, things will only get worse. When corruption is normalised, nurtured, and allowed to confidently weave its way through society to career levels, and when the leaders and the connected act with impunity and no longer feel the need to be discreet about their corrupt activities, when institutions meant to identify and flush out such acts of impudence are themselves corrupt, it is the ordinary man from whom vital resources are diverted away who feels the pain.
MTHWAKAZI INDEPENDENT 