Brazen corruption in Mugabe’s backyard

Obituaries
Skeletons keep tumbling from those in President Robert Mugabe’s inner circle, leaving little doubt that his regime is being oiled by a thoroughly corrupt network.

Skeletons keep tumbling from those in President Robert Mugabe’s inner circle, leaving little doubt that his regime is being oiled by a thoroughly corrupt network.

THE STANDARD COMMENT

Hardly a week passes without a report of one scandal involving millions of dollars siphoned out of government and parastatals by individuals connected to the ruling party.

This is an indication that the cancer of corruption has spread its tentacles to virtually every important office in government and parastatals to devastating effect.

For the past two months, shocking abuse of systems at Zesa where tenders have been awarded to dubious individuals under Energy minister Samuel Undenge’s watch has been exposed.

The minister has been accused of putting pressure on Zesa to pay controversial businessman Wicknell Chivayo over $5 million for a solar project in Matabeleland South without necessary guarantees to ensure that public funds were protected.

Undenge has also been at the centre of the latest scandal to engulf the power utility where its subsidiary the Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) was forced to award a controversial tender to build a 200MW temporary diesel power plant in Dema to Sakunda.

According to reports by our sister publication, the Zimbabwe Independent, ZPC could have saved $200 million over three years had it explored other cheaper alternatives such as liquid petroleum gas instead of diesel powered generators for the power station.

Sakunda, it has also emerged, did not tender the most viable or cheapest bid for the project as there were other competing companies that had more viable proposals.

The corruption has been exposed by both the privately owned and State-controlled media, with some revealing that Sakunda owner, a Zanu PF benefactor, partnered Mugabe’s in-law Derrick Chikore in the project.

Chikore is a brother to Bona Mugabe’s husband, Simba. There is no doubt that this network of families and Zanu PF funders will be the biggest beneficiaries of the deal, whose costs have to be borne by the long-suffering taxpayer.

Zesa will have to hike electricity tariffs to pay for this brazen corruption and the parasites will get richer at the expense of the crumbling State and impoverished population.

In any part of the world, the Dema scandal would have ended Undenge’s political career but this cannot happen in Zimbabwe as long as Mugabe is at the helm. The president is on record defending the minister’s performance at the ministry, which has been disastrous so far.

After all, Mugabe now has a dubious reputation of protecting those found with their hands in the cookie jar as long as they serve a purpose in his grand scheme of being life president.

In fact, the numerous scandals unearthed at Zesa this year alone are just a tip of an iceberg.

The Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (Zacc) has several dossiers against senior government officials that are believed to have abused their offices for financial gain.

One of the officials targeted in the Zacc dragnet is Mugabe’s own spokesperson George Charamba.

After news of the investigations was broken by the State controlled media, Charamba came out guns blazing in what was clearly an attempt to intimidate the commission.

The assumption is that he was speaking on behalf of Mugabe and these are some of the actions that have convinced Zimbabweans that the president’s rhetoric on government’s readiness to root out corruption is pure deception.

Mugabe’s regime is sustained by corruption and it would be a waste of time to think that any action can be taken against those found on the wrong side of the law. Cry beloved Zimbabwe.