The stories of rampant
corruption and looting in Zimbabwe have been crashing in like tsunami waves proving
beyond doubt that there is rampant corruption and looting and rendering Mugabe’s
past denials as nothing but lies. But more significantly, the extend of the
corruption and looting have proven beyond doubt that it was them and not the
sanctions that have caused the economic melt-down!
Dennis Magaya was
being paid US $ 44 000.00 a month as a consultant by ZESA – parastatal that has
a mountain of unpaid debts and is known for its load shedding and exorbitant
electricity bills even if the customer was off the bill will still be
exorbitant.
Harare City Council officials could have pocketed more
than US$100 million through inflating prices of equipment for the US$144,4
million loan agreement obtained from China whose contract to refurbish water
and sewage treatment plants was awarded to a Chinese company. Harare Town Clerk Tendai
Mahachi was in on the act. Yes the same Tendai Mahachi who was paid US $ 37 000
a month!
Minister Chombo
stepped in to reinstate Mahachi after the Mayor sacked the Town Clerk for refusing
to reveal his salaries and perks and those of the other senior managers.
Meanwhile ordinary lowly paid council workers were not being paid and basic
services to rates payers were not being delivered, supposedly, because there
was no money.
Mugabe is fighting a
legal battle to recover a Hong Kong US$ 5 million mansion from a Chinese businessman
who is trying to swindle it from him. The mansion was bought in 2008 for his daughter,
Bona, although at the time he lied claiming he was renting the property. Yes it
is the same dodgy businessman who swindled Grace Mugabe out of US$ 1 million
after delivering old lorries instead of new one agreed in the contract.
Cuthbert Dube, the CEO
of Premier Service Medical Aid Society was being paid $500,000 a month and
Mugabe’s feisty spin-doctor George Charamba was getting $100 000.00 a year as
board member fees for the Society whilst the ordinary members who paid the
subscriptions where being refused any medical treatment because PSMAS was not
paying the bill of the service providers, because the society had no money.
ZBC boss Happison
Muchechetere, who looted over $40,000 per month while ordinary staff went
without wages for the last 7 months.
Many senior Zanu PF
members were involved in a scheme to help farm owners buy plant and equipment. They
got the money but never bothered to pay it back contributing to the Reserve
Bank of Zimbabwe’s US$ 1 billion debt!
Of course it is all
this rampant corruption and looting over the last three decades that has caused
Zimbabwe’s economic melt-down. Mugabe has gone to great length to deny there
was corruption and looting and the odd occasion he has admitted there was any
such thing it was only to down play the problem. He has dismissed any claims
the country’s economic woes could be caused by corruption and looting.
As far as Mugabe was
concerned it was “the illegal sanctions imposed by the West to push their
regime change agenda” that was the alpha and omega of the country’s economic
problems.
With all these stories
of massive corruption and looting by himself and all those around him; Mugabe
knows the cat is out of the bag. There can be no denying there is corruption
and looting and thus denying of the economic melt-down – the logical economic
consequences of the rot!
In a health democracy
the government of the day will be forced to resign following the revelation of just
one such damaging story. Zimbabwe is not a democracy; that much is clear.
Still, not even a tyrannical dictatorship can survive the onslaught of these tsunami
stories crashing in one after another. The dictatorship can service the
political fallout but not the economic fallout too!
Like it or not Mugabe and
Zanu PF are finished! The most important thing now is to ensure the nation
manages the collapse so that the tyrant and his cronies do not drag the whole
nation into the abyss with them!
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