Latest News Editor's Choice


Opinion / Columnist

'Gold Mafia will face full wrath of the law!' Bollocks! For once, face povo's wrath in free elections

04 Apr 2023 at 13:55hrs | Views
"Charova sei chando kukwidza hamba mumuti!" (The winter will have to be extraordinarily cold to force the tortoise to climb a tree!) so goes the Shona adage. Well after weeks of dismissing the Al Jazeera Gold Mafia documentary as a storm in a tea-cup, the Zanu PF tortoise has lumbered up a tree!

"Government takes note of a documentary titles "Gold Mafia" currently being serialised by an international broadcasting channel which purports to expose a network of alleged  money laundering and gold smuggling in Zimbabwe" stated the Press Statement signed by Senator Monica Mutsvangwa, Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services.

"Government takes the allegations raised in the documentary seriously, and has directed relevant organisations to institute investigations into the issues raised therein. Any person found to have engaged in acts of corruption, fraud or any form of crime, will face the full wrath of the law."

Bollocks! These Zanu PF thugs must think every Zimbabwean is a certified village idiot who will believe anything the regime says!

In Zimbabwe corruption has been tolerated as the norm and even approved and legitimised and thus institutionalised. It is not just a few individuals who are corrupt the whole organisation is rotten to the core.

When those in position of power and authority are corrupt, it is not surprising how quickly the rot will spread. When the subordinates are armed with the details of the criminal activities of the boss, they are emboldened to commit similar crimes themselves confident the boss would never act for fear of self-incriminating.  

The very fact that 80% of Zimbabwe's US$2 billion gold or 16% of the country's GPD is being smuggled out of the country every year, this has been going for years and it is not only gold but diamonds and other resources; proves corruption in Zimbabwe has reached pandemic proportions. All our institutions and organisations, banks, security services, Customs, right up to government itself; are not just corrupt but rotten to the core!
"Any person found to have engaged in acts of corruption, will face the full wrath of the law!" Yeah right!
Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission was launched in 2018 with the usual funfair and razzmatazz and so far ZACC has spent US$ 33.3 million fighting corruption. The Commission has not managed to have even one big fish charged and convicted. The modus operandi is catch and release, and after a while the case kicked into the long grass and forgotten.  

The British Football Premier League is one of the most successful sporting leagues in the world. Their secret? Teams attract the best players and managers in the world and anyone whose performance falls short of the demanding standards is sacked.

So far, with 28 games played out of 38 in a 20-team in the Premier League, 13 managers have been sacked. There are no sacred cows!

43 years after independence, Zimbabwe has only had two leaders and it took a military coup to remove Robert Mugabe only for the coup plotters to replace him with another dictator, Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa. The root cause of Zimbabwe's economic meltdown and political paralysis is political stagnation, the nation has been stuck with this corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship for 43 years and counting, regardless of the regime's pathetic track record of failure corruption and tyrannical oppression.

It was none other than President Mugabe and after him Mnangagwa who has presided over the wholesale loot Al Jazeera Gold Mafia has uncovered. It was Mnangagwa himself who appointed this third-grade crook, Prophet Uebert Angel, ambassador-at-large and granted him the plenipotentiary, carte blanche, powers! How can such a dunderhead be the Head of State! And yet Mnangagwa is

Head of State but only because Zanu PF has rigged elections these last 43 years, denying the ordinary people a meaningful say in the governance of the country! The failure to hold free, fair and credible elections is the root cause of Zimbabwe's economic decline, notoriety as one of the most corrupt nation on earth and political paralysis. Nothing of substance can ever be accomplished until we cure ourselves of this curse of rigged elections and bad governance. Nothing!

Zimbabweans will be going to the polls in four months, the exact date is yet be announced; the signs are Zanu PF is once again blatantly rigged these elections. The regime has stubbornly refused to produce something as basic as a verified voters' roll, has denied 3 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora the vote or 37% of the electorate, etc., etc. This time Zanu PF must be denied political legitimacy for filing to hold free, fair and credible elections.

Deny Zanu PF political legitimacy will force Zimbabwe to set up an interim government, a GNU, as happened in 2008. This time we will appoint individuals with at least the common sense to implement the democratic reforms to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship and end the curse of rigged elections!  

"Zanu PF government will "institute investigations into the issues raised therein. Any person found to have engaged in acts of corruption, fraud or any form of crime, will face the full wrath of the law." No, forget Zanu PF launching yet another ZACC! We know already the criminals behind the economic meltdown, the tyrannical oppression and the looting of our gold and diamonds and they must now face the full wrath of the electorate in a free, fair and credible 2023 elections! If Zanu PF rigs the 2023 elections, as it did with past elections, then the party must and will be denied legitimacy!  




Source - zimbabwelight.blogspot.com
All articles and letters published on Bulawayo24 have been independently written by members of Bulawayo24's community. The views of users published on Bulawayo24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Bulawayo24. Bulawayo24 editors also reserve the right to edit or delete any and all comments received.