'Ex-MDC-T ministers in government to make up numbers'

FORMER State Enterprises and Parastatals minister Gorden Moyo has admitted that MDC-T Cabinet ministers were unable to curb corruption during their tenure in the inclusive government because they had been allocated "irrelevant ministries" and most of their proposals to the curb the scourge were ignored by their Zanu-PF counterparts.

Speaking during a public meeting organised by corruption watchdog Transparency International Zimbabwe in Mutare on Thursday, Moyo said of the 14 ministries allocated to his party, only five were significant.

"It's only the Finance, Health, Labour, Energy and Water ministries that we had and the rest were like departments. We were there to make up numbers. We were conned," Moyo said.

He claimed the rest, including his, were only there to make numbers.

"I was just a thinking minister and not a doing minister. The MDC had only five ministries, but on paper we were 14," claimed Moyo when quizzed by the residents to explain what efforts he made to stop the vice during his tenure as Cabinet minister in charge of parastatals.

Turning to the ongoing exposé of corruption and obscene salaries and perks received by top executives at public institutions, Moyo accused President Robert Mugabe of not being sincere over the issue.

"The problem is bigger than the salarygate. We have a structural problem. The State enterprises have become retrenchment home for the military, former ministers and former ambassadors.

"Over the years the current government has been losing elections and it is the military that is saving the current government from implosion. Therefore, they have a sense of entitlement. The President is held hostage by these people.

"The government has no guts to take these people to courts because doing so will be like self-indictment," he added.

Moyo said State security arms of government were also "too weak" to deal with the matter as they were either incapacitated or accomplices in corruption.

Speaking at the same event, human rights activist Farai Maguwu accused Zanu PF of failing to enforce its own 1984 code of conduct which denounces corruption.