Vice President Constantino Chiwenga has emerged as a lone voice in Zanu PF in the fight against corruption and has become a target of abuse by a ruling party faction that is benefiting from the largesse of a few individuals whose source of wealth is a big mystery.
Chiwenga had a recent showdown with President Emmerson Mnangagwa after he presented him with a dossier during a Zanu PF politburo meeting, which detailed how some businessmen have been allegedly siphoning money from the state.
The vice president’s anger is said to have been fuelled by the recent donation of cash and cars worth over US$4 million by Wicknell Chivayo to coincide with an event to mark the 83 year-old ruler’s birthday.
Chivayo’s source of wealth has remained a source of a lot of unanswered questions.
Last year, the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission indicated that it was ready to charge the ex-convict for undisclosed financial crimes, but in a strange twist to the tale the state graft buster moved to arrest his erstwhile business partners Mike Chimombe and Moses Mpofu.
Chimombe and Mpofu have been languishing in remand prison for over a year, with talk in some corridors that they are being punished for crossing Chivayo’s path.
At the same time, the controversial tenderpreneur has become closer to Mnangagwa and continues to dish cars and cash like confetti at a wedding.
Calls for state institutions to conduct a lifestyle audits on the coterie of so-called businessmen that use the cover of Zanu PF to plunder the country’s resources have fallen on deaf ears.
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It is against this background that we find Chiwenga’s crusade against corruption worth supporting. Zanu PF claims to follow China’s development model, but it seems the ruling party picks and chooses what to adopt.
China is one of the shining examples of how to stop the cancer of corruption from eating into a country’s economy.
Under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, China has waged an unprecedented and sustained battle against corruption. One of the key ingredients of the campaign against corruption is that there are no sacred cows.
Senior government officials and members of the Chinese Communist Party and millionaires have been caught in the dragnet. In Zimbabwe, only the small fish are punished while the big looters are left to flaunt their unexplained wealth with impunity.
We urge Chiwenga not to relent in his fight to bring those found to have looted state resources to account and we know that right thinking Zimbabweans will back him to the hilt.
