REPORTS of corrupt activities across our beautiful country continue to fill our newspaper pages.
Today, hardly a day passes without one reading about a board of directors or a team of officials having been fired for corruption.
Everyone in this country strongly believes corruption itself is a dangerous cancer devouring our nation.
While the situation is not totally hopeless, we all need to swiftly act to cut off this terrible cancer and save our country.
In this article we want to take a more focused approach at corruption in the following areas; political corruption in general, police corruption, judicial corruption, ZIMRA corruption, education corruption and local authority corruption.
Let’s start by briefly looking at what corruption is.
Corruption is a form of dishonest or unethical conduct often to acquire personal benefit by a person entrusted with a position of authority.
Corruption may include many activities including bribery and embezzlement.
A number of writers say that corruption occurs at a number of levels.
Petty corruption describes small-scale corruption, grand corruption takes place at the ‘highest levels of government’ and highest levels of huge companies and lastly, systemic corruption where corruption becomes the rule rather than the exception.
Having defined corruption above, let us now look at corruption at various areas in our country.
This brings us to political corruption.
Wikipedia defines political corruption as the use of powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain.
Forms of corruption vary, but include bribery, extortion, nepotism, patronage, influence peddling, graft and embezzlement.
Is there political corruption in Zimbabwe as defined above?
Yes.
Government officials are being bribed and there are many Government officials using their positions for private gain.
Everyday we read about Government officials flouting or undermining formal processes due to corruption.
For example, we have been reading about the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) and Government officials who allegedly bungled a US$200 million power project.
If any corruption is eventually found in the above deal, this kind of corruption will be described as grand corruption which is very bad for the development of the country.
From political corruption, we come to police corruption.
Police corruption is a specific form of police misconduct designed to obtain financial benefits in exchange for not pursuing or selectively pursuing an investigation or arrest.
One common form of police corruption is soliciting and/or accepting bribes.
Another example is of police officers flouting the police code of conduct in order to secure convictions of suspects, for example, through the use of falsified evidence.
If you ask average Zimbabweans about our police force’s conduct, they will tell you that a good number of our policemen in the country are corrupt.
They say many demand bribes.
And yet Zimbabwe has always been reputed to have the cleanest and most efficient police force in Africa.
However, it seems our police are losing that image to corruption.
Something must be done to arrest this deteriorating police image before their alleged corruption becomes systemic.
Related to police corruption is judicial corruption.
Judicial corruption refers to corruption related to misconduct of magistrates and judges through receiving or giving bribes, improper sentencing of convicted criminals, bias in the hearing and judgment of arguments and other such misconduct.
The one area which most Zimbabweans describe as ‘clean of corruption’ are the courts.
Ninety–nine percent of Zimbabweans believe if their cases are taken to court, they would get a fair hearing and justice would be done.
This is good news and the judiciary in general must be highly commended for maintaining a very good image.
However, we continuously get stories of magistrates conniving with prosecutors, now and again receiving bribes.
We are also getting the sad story that one or two judges are getting bribes.
Everyone knows that if magistrates and judges, together with the police, are receiving bribes, then the rule of law will be severely undermined.
The judiciary must therefore speedily deal with the corrupt one percent among them before this little group drags them deep into the morass.
There is nothing that undermines a country’s image more than a corrupt judiciary.
Turning to the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA) popularly known as the ‘taxman’, it is worth noting that ZIMRA has lately been in the press for all the wrong reasons.
Allegations of corruption directed at ZIMRA officials have been all over.
It is alleged that ZIMRA officials are receiving bribes, especially at border posts.
The story goes that at border posts, ZIMRA officials are using an age old trick to solicit bribes.
When it comes to clearing vehicles, it is said ZIMRA officials have created unnecessary bureaucratic delays which lead to long queues.
With this situation, desperate people are forced to make ‘under the table’ payments to corrupt officials in order to have their vehicles quickly cleared.
The long queues and delays are said to create a conducive climate for corruption.
Another area which has suddenly become a hotbed of corruption is education.
Schools and colleges have become hotspots for corruption.
Headmasters are said to receive bribes for all sorts of things – provision of school places and school development levies.
The same is also happening in colleges and universities.
This corruption in education should be staunchly fought for it is likely to undermine the best education system on the African continent.
Finally we come to local authorities.
These are accused of flouting tender procedures, among many other misdemeanours.
For example, people without the capacity to carry out certain projects nevertheless end up winning tenders in return for kick-backs to councillors.
The effect of this is that projects are not eventually carried out.
If at all these projects are performed, they will be substandard.
There are endless areas where corruption is thriving in Zimbabwe.
The above cited areas are just examples.
What then should be done to end the scourge?
Government must adopt a law which combats corruption at all levels.
Given the rate at which corruption is growing in the country, it is essential there be a specific law targeting corruption.
Anti-corruption programmes are imperative.
For example, we must set up special anti-corruption units targeting corruption hotspots such as police, schools, ZIMRA and Government departments so that corruption can be tackled in a more focused approach.
The problem of corruption is quite massive, but not impossible to overcome.
Corruption is not in our Zimbabwean DNA, hence it will be possible to cure it provided we all have the political will to take it head on.