The dawn of the new dispensation in Zimbabwe post the military assisted transition gave hope for all the people, young and the old of seeing a prosperous and peaceful Zimbabwe. The President of Zimbabwe, HE President ED Mnangagwa has acknowledged at different fora that corruption need to be dealt with once and for all. Addressing the delegates at the Zanu PF Congress in December 2019, he expressed his concerns over the continued existence of corruption and promised to act on it. Broadly defined, there are three types of corruption are common in Zimbabwe: graft, rent-seeking, tax and duty evasion and avoidance and prebendalism.
Some of the major drives of corruption are greed of money, desires, higher levels of market and political monopolization, weak civil participation higher levels of bureaucracy and inefficient administrative structures. In spite of recent constitutional reforms, the country continues to face major governance challenges, manifested through various forms of corruption, ranging from petty, bureaucratic and political corruption to grand forms of corruption. Corruption violates the core human rights Principles of transparency, accountability, non-discrimination and meaningful participation in every aspect of life in the community.
The current weakleaks story of ‘fishrot in Namibia’ which has resulted in the arrest of two former ministers is just a tip of an iceberg of governance issues in Africa. Good governance is a way of measuring how public institutions conduct public affairs and manage public resources in a preferred way. The concept of “good governance” thus emerges as a model to compare ineffective economies or political bodies with viable economies and political bodies.
To Yu Yeping in the article Governance and Good Governance: A New Framework for Political Analysis , good governance is only when citizens have sufficient political power to participate in elections, policy-making, administration and supervision can they prompt the State and join hands with it to build public authority and order. The question which remain unanswered is, how ZACC is going to win in this war for the people of Zimbabwe. ED was won various struggles in the past and now as number one citizen, it crucial to see how he turn his personal strengths into turning the Zimbabwe misfortunes for the better. The Zimbabwe Vision 2030 highly depends on its ability to shackle off the effects of corruption which have been influenced by the two decades of economic meltdown and political strife. The appointment of new commissioners at the state`s institutions of fighting corruption has given people a ray of hope that the cancer would be put into the chemotherapy.
The challenge with Zimbabwe corruption is that it has been institutionalized and bringing it down needs a firm challenge from the man, ED. The current legal and institutional framework has failed to deal with corruption and deter people to continue doing it. With ZACC, ED has the first tool which will assist him to eradicate the social unpleasant problem which has resulted in the death of social morality. The people has lost their consciousness and it demands a total political will from the president and have a policy that seeks to deal with it. The time has come and now or never for Zimbabwe. If we fail o deal with the elephant in the room we will lose the people and the economy. The battle at the moment is about giving the institution ZACC the best environment which cannot be economically and politically influenced.
The success and failure of Zimbabwe has been bestowed on ED alone and anybody around him is working in support or against him. ED has time to fight for a legacy or sacrifice it by allowing some rudiment elements causing chaos and destroying the country. The future will put him on scale and measure against his achievements. We don’t know the policies which will be adopted by his predecessor. To ED, it’s high time you sit down with ZACC and start building your legacy which is being threatened because of few individuals. 2023 is just around the corner and we have less than ten years before the expiry of Zimbabwe Vision 2030 which you envisioned. Everyone wants to be a hero in his time and it’s the time for ED to be the hero. He has the power now to do great for Zimbabwe.
We learned some some lessons with the disposition of the late former President R.G. Mugabe which opened a can of worms on dilapidated our governance system was. I believe the motivation of the transition was to make Zimbabwe great again. The dangers of embarking on an anti- corruption will come at a cost of relationships which we might value but we seem like we don’t have an option now. Zimbabwe has the capacity to turn around its fortune if all its resources are tailored towards the economic and social development of its people.
The major challenge that has continued to haunt Zimbabwe has been the institutionalization of corruption from all levels of government. The only way Zimbabwe can come out the devastating levels of corruption is having measures and policies which deter corruption at all levels of government. The recent efforts by the ZACC to bring in a judge to train the commissioners, its staff and other judiciary stakeholders is a commented effort.
The following are some of the ways we can combat corruption: concertize the people on all forms of corruption and the unintended effects to the lowest accessible levels, have severe penalties on offenders to deter others and capacitate the institutions to deal with it, have capacity building on all those involved in the combat of corruption (courts, police and other government stakeholders). It’s a process I believe we will win. The ball is in ED’s court and he has to decide what to with it.
The Art of Politics 