Opinion / Columnist
Take stern measures against corrupt public officials now!
28 Jan 2014 at 16:52hrs | Views
The firing of Dr Cuthbert Dube from the embattled Premier Service Medical Aid society (PSMAS) is a welcome move which is exemplary to perpetrators of corrupt activities.
This should be a clear warning to all bad apples such as Dube who are covertly converting proceeds from public utilities for personal aggrandizement. I learnt with regret and sorrow that all service providers across the City of Harare have cut lines of deals with PSMAS. Its membership is stranded as they cannot receive medical attention anymore. Chemists/Pharmacies and medical homes are demanding cash up front.
I am cocksure that the turbulence caused by PSMAS saga in the past few months recorded many deaths, and many more are still adding on as the members cannot access services since all its business partners have lost faith in it. This defeats the basic logic of one subscribing to a medical aid society.
We urge the interim management at PSMAS to mop-up the messy fast to serve human lives which are precariously hanging in the balance. Surely this is a profound national security matter. The Nation cannot afford to sacrifice and risky lives of its workforce who constitute the bulky of the membership.
The same guillotine used on Dube should land on the equally corrupt ZBC Chief Executive Officer, Happison Muchechetere who is suspended on full benefits. How can a corrupt official continue to rejoice the same obscene benefits while he is facing serious allegations of corruption and mismanagement?
The government is urged to have an overhaul of all public bodies which seem to be operating along personal lines by the strategic managers in these organizations. Personal interests are taking precedence ahead of normative corporate governance business ethics.
The government needs to urgently focus on Harare City Council salary schedules, and check if they are commensurate with revenues collected monthly, and how they are balanced with service delivery in the capital. Or the top management is just gobbling hefty wages they squander time dangling ensconced in executive rocking-chairs in their spacious air-conditioned offices watching international television stations, as well as playing on social media networks on the flamboyant new information communication technology gadgets.
Harare residents are salivating for the most basic services like water, sewerage, roads free of potholes, street-lights, health care and electricity. Let's cut the strings which keep their laurels suspended in the air as they sleep on duty. These people should paid for doing their jobs, not merely for the symbolic posts they occupy.
Rural District councils are also infamous for the same trend of operation. They have become havens for corruption. The workforce remunerates themselves while they relegated service delivery to the dustbins. They need to be investigated now in order to avert the calamity, such as, that the Dube led-PSMAS brought to the entire nation.
This should also extend to State Universities which are now operating along commercial lines to line-up pockets of the officials who are in these institutions.
One inundating example is that shown by Midlands State University (MSU) which recruits multitudinous numbers of students than what they can accommodate on the available facilities. They are just driven by their insatiable desire to enroll students who can pay the nasty fees which range from $ 770 and $ 1800 for bachelors and masters degrees respectively. While on the contrast, master's students at Bindura University, pay a mere $ 650. How does Midlands state University account for this anomaly? There is need for a probe to ascertain such fundamental variables.
More often than not, thousands of students on block release at MSU almost disrupt the routine for conventional students because they do not have adequate lecture halls to accommodate them, as well as the teaching staff. So one wonders who is benefiting out of these large fees paid by students.
The list of public utilities brandishing symptoms of corruption is getting g longer each day. For how long shall we stay with this rot with limited room for corrective measures? Let's accelerate the rate before the nation sinks into abyss.
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Suitable Kajau can be contacted at kajausuitable@gmail.com
This should be a clear warning to all bad apples such as Dube who are covertly converting proceeds from public utilities for personal aggrandizement. I learnt with regret and sorrow that all service providers across the City of Harare have cut lines of deals with PSMAS. Its membership is stranded as they cannot receive medical attention anymore. Chemists/Pharmacies and medical homes are demanding cash up front.
I am cocksure that the turbulence caused by PSMAS saga in the past few months recorded many deaths, and many more are still adding on as the members cannot access services since all its business partners have lost faith in it. This defeats the basic logic of one subscribing to a medical aid society.
We urge the interim management at PSMAS to mop-up the messy fast to serve human lives which are precariously hanging in the balance. Surely this is a profound national security matter. The Nation cannot afford to sacrifice and risky lives of its workforce who constitute the bulky of the membership.
The same guillotine used on Dube should land on the equally corrupt ZBC Chief Executive Officer, Happison Muchechetere who is suspended on full benefits. How can a corrupt official continue to rejoice the same obscene benefits while he is facing serious allegations of corruption and mismanagement?
The government is urged to have an overhaul of all public bodies which seem to be operating along personal lines by the strategic managers in these organizations. Personal interests are taking precedence ahead of normative corporate governance business ethics.
The government needs to urgently focus on Harare City Council salary schedules, and check if they are commensurate with revenues collected monthly, and how they are balanced with service delivery in the capital. Or the top management is just gobbling hefty wages they squander time dangling ensconced in executive rocking-chairs in their spacious air-conditioned offices watching international television stations, as well as playing on social media networks on the flamboyant new information communication technology gadgets.
Rural District councils are also infamous for the same trend of operation. They have become havens for corruption. The workforce remunerates themselves while they relegated service delivery to the dustbins. They need to be investigated now in order to avert the calamity, such as, that the Dube led-PSMAS brought to the entire nation.
This should also extend to State Universities which are now operating along commercial lines to line-up pockets of the officials who are in these institutions.
One inundating example is that shown by Midlands State University (MSU) which recruits multitudinous numbers of students than what they can accommodate on the available facilities. They are just driven by their insatiable desire to enroll students who can pay the nasty fees which range from $ 770 and $ 1800 for bachelors and masters degrees respectively. While on the contrast, master's students at Bindura University, pay a mere $ 650. How does Midlands state University account for this anomaly? There is need for a probe to ascertain such fundamental variables.
More often than not, thousands of students on block release at MSU almost disrupt the routine for conventional students because they do not have adequate lecture halls to accommodate them, as well as the teaching staff. So one wonders who is benefiting out of these large fees paid by students.
The list of public utilities brandishing symptoms of corruption is getting g longer each day. For how long shall we stay with this rot with limited room for corrective measures? Let's accelerate the rate before the nation sinks into abyss.
-------------------
Suitable Kajau can be contacted at kajausuitable@gmail.com
Source - Suitable Kajau
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