CHOMBO'S AMASSED WEALTH - EVIDENCE OF MUGABE REGIME'S LOOTING: THE ROOT CAUSE OF THE ECONOMIC MELT DOWN!

“Hapana chinoshunguridze murimi sokuona churu chenhoko dzamakozho mudura. Anoziva kuti nzara yavaka imba yezvitinha zvakatsva pamurasha wake!” There is nothing more heartbreaking to a peasant farmer than to discover an anthill size heap of rat droppings in his granary. Zimbabwean and the whole world have a peep into the stupendous wealth accumulated by Minister Ignatius Chombo, one of Mugabe’s filthy rich ruling elite, and everyone is astounded. Little wonder Zimbabwe has had the most spectacular national economic melt down in human history!

Minister Chombo and his estranged wife, Marian, are going through a divorce and she is asking for $ 2 000 monthly allowance plus a share of the couple’s assets. She has submitted the list of the assets and these included: 15 vehicles including three Mercedes Benz, 75 properties including commercial farms, businesses, stands, houses and flats all over Zimbabwe and some in South Africa; all in all valued at hundreds of millions of dollars, at least.

This is the wealth of the Chombos alone. If we start the Zanu PF role-call starting with Mugabe himself the true picture of the rot will start to emerge. Mugabe and his wife Grace each own at least five farms each including the infamous Gushungo Dairy Farm and the multimillion dollar mansion. All the Zanu PF big wigs including ministers, Police and Army commanders and businessmen like Philip Chiyagwa are all know to own farms and vast fortunes. The full details of what each and everyone of them own is a closely guarded secrete – which is the reason why the regime has been ruthless to the point of committing mass murder to retain political power and thus stop the full truth coming out.

The effect of Chombo’s amassed wealth on the nation goes beyond the immediate value of the individual vehicle or property. Like the rats in a granary; the peasant did not only lose the grain eaten by the rats but also loses all the grain contaminated with the rat’s urine and dropping! When there is such rampant looting and individuals are awash with money as was the case here; there is criminal waste of resources.

The waste is two fold. Most of the loot is always spent careless self indulgencies. It is not uncommon for the looters to “blow” $250 000 over a long weekend. Minister Chombo, like Mugabe, had a son studying in America; they are known for driving the latest models of the most expensive cars and to throw lavish parties at the drop of a hat.

At the peak of the regime’s looting in 2005 to 2008 when Gideon Gono was printing money as if there was no tomorrow, stealing millions from Reserve Bank accounts and borrowing right, left and centre; Zanu PF ruling elite had so much money they were fighting to spend it and did not care how or on what. So 75% plus of what Chombo and his fellow Zanu PF looted will never be accounted for; there is nothing tangle.

The second level of waste is what the looters have done with their loot. It is a well known fact that Mugabe and his cronies have turned productive commercial farms into wastelands over night. Mrs Chombo has two new combine harvesters and tractors on her list of the assets to be shared; it will be no surprise to find the harvesters were bought using soft loans from Gono. The loan was never paid back and the harvesters themselves have never been used for nothing other than to roost chickens.

Mugabe and his cronies have been wasting billions of dollars of the nation’s wealth on luxuries and other pleasurable things and commandeering the nation’s important assets only to seat on them like magpies!

Soon as independence the Mugabe regime undermined the country’s economic prospects through economic mismanagement – the regime really believed it could spend its way into mass economic prosperity – gutsa ruzhinji – with its socialist policies. By the 1990s the regime’s ruling elite were looking increasingly at who to enrich themselves and corruption was allowed to grow dragging the national economy into the gutters.

It was the economic mismanagement that caused the economy to start to falter. It was the faltering economy that encouraged corruption as those in power sort to bolster their economic position. Corruption was even more wasteful of resources than mismanagement and thus forcing a faltering economy on it knees. With the economy collapsing and thus the ruling party turned to violence to retain power and starting looting at a grand scale to cover themselves for the difficult economic days. But again they only made a bad situation even worse; it was the looting has pushed the economy over the edge into total melt down.

The Zimbabwe economy has shrunk by 85% from 2002 to 2008; the period when looting was at its worst. The consequences of the economic melt down have been tragic human sufferings and deaths; unemployment has soared to the nauseating heights of 80% plus, basic services like education and health have collapsed and life expectancy has dropped from 65 years in 1980 to 30 years in 2008.

Of course, Mugabe and his cronies have tried to blame the economic melt down on the West’s imposed sanctions targeting him and 200 or so others. Stories like this, and there are many, many more stories of unparallel greed and waste to follow, tell a different story.

It is understandable why Mrs Chombo is fighting hard to ensure she keeps as much of the family wealth as she can; she has no doubt developed an expense life style over the years and would like to continue to enjoy it. However it is not so much her husband she has to fight to keep the loot, it is the rightful owners of the loot – the Zimbabwean people. It will be irresponsible to let the very people who caused such suffering keep their loot particularly when all they will do is seat all this wealth and hold back the economic recovery.
The Chombo’s looted wealth as with all other looted wealth must be given back to the people of Zimbabwe. There must be a thorough investigation to determine how anyone managed to accumulate all this wealth, particularly at the time when the country was going through a really devastating economic situation. Those who contributed to the economic melt down must be punished.