Corruption tearing apart our nation

The call by the ZANU-PF National Consultative Assembly members to decisively deal with corrupt party officials is long overdue process as the economy is drained mercilessly to the drying point by wicked bigwigs who abuse their offices. These predators are motivated by the desire to satisfy their selfish egos to accumulate wealth by devious means to flood their insatiable granaries booty. Never should our society allow this unpleasantness to live another day.

The level of impunity enjoyed by such corruptionists in the face of law enforcement and the anti-corruption investigation institutions is amazing. Is this the evidence of a collapsed nation state whose systems are no longer working efficiently and effectively to nub the ravenous and gluttonous citizens that are ravaging national resources unbridled?

They are looting openly with no due care on the probable consequences of their actions. The local press is always awash with stories of corruption in public institutions that is characterising Government Ministries, local authorities and parastatals. This is really absurd!
What hell has entered into our society that people are no longer scared of committing this scandalous sin of embezzling public resources without conscience?

In the recent weeks it was really mind-boggling to read a series of stories about misappropriation of funds in the Ministry of Energy and Power Development in which the responsible Minister, Dr Samuel Undenge, is allegedly fingered as the protagonist of the all the shoddy deals threatening to collapse the whole ministry. But alas! No significant reactions to these issues have been applied to stop the whirl-wind minister who is in successive blames making him guilty of failing to run the corporation efficiently for the good of the nation.

Dr Undenge's ministry controls the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) which is infamous for under-performance on its mandate. ZESA fails on all its primary responsibilities which among other things include; perennial load shedding for both household and industry, thereby assassinating efforts to resuscitate industry.

It is a hub for criminal insiders who are selling household electricity meters through back-door at a whooping cost of $200 - $350 per unit to poor needy consumers, especially in new locations like Glenwood Park in Harare. Most people cannot afford such expensive deals, and this result in most households failing to utilise power for the benefit of the utility through pay as you go facility. This means ZESA continues to fall while they allow corrupt workers to exploit the corporation's business opportunities. The workforce is not willing to expand business for ZESA, allegedly due to poor management poised to loot company resources for their personal use.

ZESA is in incessant cash deficit as most of their projects lose more resources to corrupt activities. Its Minister, Dr Undenge is accused of engaging a bogus Public Relations Consultant Company to drain cash when the corporation has a fully fledged Internal Public Relations Department. One wonders why the whole minister chooses to hire an expensive consultant that guzzles thousands of dollars for tasks which can be done internally. Possibly, he is a beneficiary of the proceeds.

The same minister is also accused of force-marching ZESA to make an advance payment of US$7 million to the controversial businessman, Wicknel Chivhayo, as part payment for a solar power generation plant poised to be established in Gwanda. This deal was done under obscured circumstances which left the whole nation dumb-struck.

Surprisingly, Dr Undenge is still in charge of the ministry despite all this bad track record. Assuming that what is happening is also a replication of what is happening in some other government departments, certainly this is too ugly for us all to swallow as citizens. Ideally, the populace expects immediate action to be taken to mitigate further damage to public interest. The best to be done was possibly to suspend the minister to pave way for thorough investigations to the allegations to done and ascertain the reality of issues.

This is time for the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) and the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) to step-up efforts in chase of all smokes of corruption that are bringing tears to our eyes daily. There is an immediate need to exorcise our society of corruption and cleanse all ugly parts for public good. This exercise should target all public institutions in the spirit of safe-guarding public resources against deceitful officials in public organisations that are converting them to private usage.

The public should be ready to supply information to the relevant organisations through the toll-free numbers to assist acceleration of investigations and the ultimate full course of justice.