Corruption bends region double like beggars under sacks

Freeafrica ( posted: January 10, 2005)
Editorial By Shepherd Mpofu

“corruption in Zimbabwe has affected children in many ways. Firstly the poor children have food and other donations diverted by greedy people including politicians, and at the end of the day they are deprived of decent meals, homes and education. Secondly the young children will think that what Mugabe`s MPs and Ministers are doing is the right thing. They are icons in society and children will follow in their footsteps thinking that corruption is the best way to get rich fast.”

Most Southern African states are bent double like beggars under sacks due to corruption in its various manifestations. Be it political, economic and social the sub-continent finds itself at an unenviable position. Conventional wisdom has it that any right thinking human being frowns upon this bete noire. But the state of affairs in most countries in the region has realized more salivating characters than frowning faces. There has been a culture of wealth accumulation, by whatever means, among the lot of the sub-region. The insatiable appetite to acquire and accumulate wealth has ravaged many hearts like a wild fire devouring dry savanna grass.

Brutally truthful is the fact that it’s not only the immoral politicians and business people who are corrupt: even the church and faith based organisations leaders are part of the rot.
This is through commission, omission and, at times both. And as would Mark Anthony in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar would say-“yet they are noble men.”

In Southern Africa, Transparency International (TI) an international corruption barometer puts Zimbabwe as second from the war torn Angola in terms of being the best in corrupt practices. South Africa, Namibia and Botswana follow respectively. Interestingly the leading most corrupt nation in the world is African, Ethiopia. Though the TI report leaves other countries, events unfolding in Kenya, Zambia and Zimbabwe are worth scrutiny. The economic cleansing ceremonies being carried day in day out in those countries have taken many luxuriating fat cats by surprise.

In all cases the politically well connected are falling from grace with a thud.

However, one wonders whether these “noble men” (Levy Mwanawasa: Zambia, Robert Mugabe: Zimbabwe and Mwai Kibaki: Kenya) wholeheartedly mean it when they say they are fighting corruption or it’s a double-pronged lubricious approach. A case to settle old scores, to eliminate some elements that do not agree with them or they are justified as real fight against corruption. There is no need for people to swallow these ceremonies hook, line and sinker with no critical analysis. Are these real or just smokescreens?

Only time will tell.

The political climate is one of the contributory factors for corruption to thrive. Zimbabwe is a classic example of what happens when the ballot is stolen in day light robbery. When president Mugabe romped into victory with reckless abandon in the 2002 presidential election the longest suicide note for the country was penned. One cannot agree with Shakespeare more when he once asserted that, “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. The Zimbabwean leadership, in its intoxicated stupor of power has facilitated corrupt escapades across the social stratum.

Once celebrated as a gem of Africa, Zimbabwe now boasts of an autocracy that transformed from being the dearly beloved of the masses, into a leadership which the masses would like to crack its members` skulls with cricket bats. Zimbabwe has seen a constant monopolistic sharing of the shrunken economic cake among the leadership and its few cronies. Thus the process has inevitably led to the emergence of ethically bankrupt fat cats whose reason for being in business and politics is connections with the leadership of the nation. Overnight avaricious millionaires who shed no sweat for their riches!

The irony of it all is that the ZANU (PF) government is on an anti-corruption crusade when it is itself unclean. One is obfuscated by the process as Mugabe`s fat cats have been incarcerated also. Is it sincere or the poor mortals have fallen from the leader’s grace? In any case such behaviour can not be treated with any respect, moreso, when it comes from a clique that came to power through election thuggery, based on a pseudo-ideology of revolutionary mantra-we brought freedom therefore we should be the custodian and dispenser of all its forms, privileges, rights and the economic cake. Any dissenting views are taken, as coming from the loathed West and any carrier is a puppet of the British or the Americans. Zimbabwe will therefore forever wallow in the muddy waters of economic retrogression and corrupt proclivities being encouraged and implemented by the current kleptocracy.

Mr. Anyway Mutetwa a child Human Rights officer with an international NGO based in Zimbabwe said, “corruption in Zimbabwe has affected children in many ways. Firstly the poor children have food and other donations diverted by greedy people including politicians, and at the end of the day they are deprived of decent meals, homes and education. Secondly the young children will think that what Mugabe`s MPs and Ministers are doing is the right thing. They are icons in society and children will follow in their footsteps thinking that corruption is the best way to get rich fast.”

Thus corruption by public officials has far reaching ramifications because of the spiral effect they have in society. The future generations are literally robbed of their future.

The economic melt down in Zimbabwe has seen the rise of overnight billionaires especially in the financial sector where millions of forex are externalized thanks to the black empowerment band with ZANU (PF) being the bandleader. The current economic clampdown has seen Mugabe arresting his finance Minister Chris Kuruneri, Member of Parliament Mr. Phillip Chiyangwa and Mr. James Makamba a member of the ruling party. Has Mugabe seen sense at last or this is a ploy to drag the country into a scene where the international community will stop treating it as a pariah state? Whose express image are these corrupt junior party members? The answer is obvious and there is really no need to take the exercise seriously.

The former Zambian president Mr. Chiluba must be cursing the constitution for ending his reign. He should have copied from the “noble man” uncle Bob down south. Mwanawasa is having great time trying to use the law to clean up the former leader. The Malawian president is allegedly trying to put his yes man and puppet Mr. Bingu wa Mutharika into the presidency. The reasons are as predictable. Analysts within the civil society say he is doing this so that he will not be incarcerated. So there is no need to crack heads in terms of analyzing African leadership styles. They are a bunch of buffoons drenched in smelly riches. Only a few icons stand out from the African crop of present and former leaders. One can talk of Mandela, Machel and Masire. However, Mandela has stood as a paragon of good leadership and an envy of many an African leader. He is indeed decorum of rulership excellence.

Church and faith based organisations’ leaders have betrayed the calling of the Lord. They have at least stood akimbo as corruption flourishes in the sub-continent. At best they have participated in the cancerous activities. These are the people whom we expect to stand up for morally right things. There is need for the people in the mould of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Pius Ncube and Reverend Mvume Dandala the AACC Secretary General who will always lambast corruption at every given opportunity.

Some faith-based leaders are so inherently and morally bankrupt that they openly operate in cohorts with corrupt politicians. Some are abusing organizational funds and constructing mansions at their homes (which are just but islands in seas of shacks) and at the end of the day they preach to the masses how romantic poverty is-for blessed are the poor for they shall inherit the kingdom…How blasphemous! The God the people worship is not a poor one. Thus what they preach at the end of the day is sublime mysticism and nonsense, as they are not saying it from their hearts. Some men of the cloth have been suborned with money, land and other favours that are meant for their selfish benefits. Of course there are some Christian leaders who have refused to be cowed and refuse to accept things that are corrupt.

The media, especially state-owned have tended to treat the issues of corruption as the modus operandi. Harare has taken great strides in castrating the public media and emasculating the independent media so that its activities are not brought out to the public. This has been through draconian legislatures and at time the appointing of some blue-eyed stooges to head public media institutions. The independent media are operating under permanent fear and it has become difficult to expose the rot in the public and private sphere of the economy. The media, especially the public, have been reduced to unwitting levels, uncritical instruments that celebrate at passively quoting some pseudo-intellectual and independent analysts who are expressly pro-establishment. They are not critical and the public is left uninformed.

The region is not beyond redemption. What is needed is for all and sundry to be involved in the fight against corruption. There should be legal instruments that deal with corruption and those caught must not be treated with a thread of mercy. Anti-corruption ministries or commissions need to be established. People with suspicious wealth should be asked to account for it and if they fail the state should confiscate such wealth. There is need for a vibrant media that will be the real Fourth Estate of the Realm and not the current toothless bulldogs that the region is putting up with. There is need for forums where ideas are exchanged with regards to the fight against corruption. And there is need for all the citizens to be involved in this crusade. Otherwise the beautiful ones are not yet born as the subcontinent continues bent double like beggars under sacks.