'ZACC arrest of high-ranking Government officials not political'

THE Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) yesterday said it was not pursuing political agendas in its arrests of high-ranking Government officials for alleged corruption.

ZACC commissioner John Makamure said this during a Transparency International Zimbabwe national anti-corruption indaba in Bulawayo. He said ZACC was conducting due diligence and the arrests are based on evidence.

ZACC has arrested two high profile individuals, Environment, Tourism and Hospital Industry Minister, Prisca Mupfumira in connection with criminal abuse of office involving US$95 million and former Director of State Residences Douglas Tapfuma for allegedly abusing his office by importing 80 vehicles without paying duty.

The two cases are being handled by the courts.

"I don't think that the commission is involved in factional fights. From my few days in the commission we are not pursuing a factional agenda. If you look at the Mupfumira case we were basing our investigations on the forensic audit. That's where the investigations are emanating from. So we don't care if that name appeared in a list that the Zanu-PF Youth League presented. That's immaterial," said Comm Makamure.

"It's the forensic report that has provided information and evidence that we can use to investigate and we are also looking at the Auditor General's report. What we are doing with the Auditor General's report is to identify the issues and entities. Issues first, if it's abuse of office what is the magnitude? Then from there we unleash investigations."

He said they got tip-offs on some of the high-profile cases they were investigating. Comm Makamure said ZACC is aware of the negative perception that some among the public have on the institution but the commissioners are trying to change it.

"So for ZACC to investigate suspected corruption we base it on information that we get from citizens as well. So there is no factional agenda that ZACC is trying to pursue. But let me say yes it's public perception and we as ZACC we should correct that. And how do we correct it? There must be results in the work that we do and we must meaningfully engage with citizens," said Comm Makamure.  

"I fully agree that public perception about the fight against corruption is negative. That negative public perception is justified because people want to see results. And I also spoke about conviction, what can we do together to ensure that there is a high conviction rate, so that we deal with negative public perception."

He said ZACC is engaging various stakeholders to address the perception issue and ways it can improve on its duties. Comm Makamure said ZACC was investigating more than 20 graft cases at the moment.

"Let me also define high profile cases, high profile is not only the person, high profile is also the magnitude of corruption, if a public official even a junior official has stolen $1 billion that is high profile. Yes, a person is high profile but also the extent of that corruption. I said at the moment ZACC is seized with over 20 high profile cases since we were sworn into office as new commissioners. So those are being investigated," he said.

Comm Makamure said ZACC has capacity to deliver on its mandate although there is room to improve.

"The capacity is there. In fact as ZACC we have said our priority should be grand corruption, those are high profile cases. Petty corruption, the police can deal with that, small cases of corruption but grand corruption, high profile that is our priority and we have the capacity to do that.  

"One major area of weakness is our investigations capacity. We have prioritised in terms of resource allocation, investigation and we have prioritised prevention and we have prioritised good corporate governance. Those are the areas that we have prioritised. There are some capacity issues and this is what we are trying to address," said Comm Makamure.