'Corruption under Mnangagwa frightening'

PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa's co-advisers Trevor Ncube has described corruption in government corridors of having reached "frightening" levels.

Ncube, who is a member of Mnangagwa's Presidential Advisory Council (PAC) was speaking in an interview with South African broadcaster e.tv's Checkpoint Tuesday night over the continued incarceration of journalist Hopewell Chin'ono.

The journalist was denied bail for the third time Monday. He is facing charges of inciting public violence and has been in remand prison for over a month.

"I must say that the level of corruption under Emmerson Mnangagwa has just been frightening; it is like a free for all," Ncube also a media mogul said.

"You asked what they are afraid of, they are afraid that you are going to disturb their eating, that is the thing. There is a lot to eat as you have seen if you have been following Hopewell's tweets and a lot of other tweets, the Covid-19 corruption like we have seen in South Africa, Kenya, and everywhere else, we have had our own bout of Covid-19 corruption.

"It does not matter how little there is, for them those who are close to the feeding trough, close to the till ‘please do not disturb us we are feeding,' that is what this is all about," Ncube said.

Ncube told Checkpoint that the manner in which Chin'ono was being treated as deliberate because the senior ruling Zanu-PF party officials knew they have failed, but were conveniently choosing to target the messenger instead of the message.

Added Ncube: "The government knows people are unhappy. The (ruling) party knows the people are unhappy, instead of attending to the problems the people are raising, we shoot the messenger, that is not how it is supposed to be."