Dianna Games, Chief Executive of renowned corruption check group Africa At Work has highly commended the Zimbabwe Anti Corruption Commission for arresting and detaining serving Minister Prisca Mupfumira.
Speaking in an interview on South Africa’s Talk Radio 702 on Monday, Games said the move could be a very good lesson for South Africa and the whole of Africa to learn from.
“It’s a serving Cabinet Minister that has been arrested… it’s the first high-profile case… It’s important, symbolically… There’s talk that, finally, some head will start to roll…— ” she said.
Mupfumira became the first casualty of the newly formed Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) on Friday when she was charged with corruption involving more than R1 billion.
Charges against Mupfumira are for her alleged abuse of state pension fund money which she oversaw as Labour and Social Welfare Minister (2014 to 2018).
Zimbabwe’s state pension fund is often targeted for looting by politicians and public officials, despite this being the first-ever prosecution.
The new anti-corruption body is reportedly investigating 200 cases.
Games says it’s unusual to see Government heads roll in most of Africa, so this is a positive step.
She says that social media is rife with reports, so far denied, that Mugabe’s former mining minister is next.
Listen to the South African Talk Radio 702 interview with Games in the audio below.
Dianna Games is Chief Executive of Africa @ Work, a consultancy focusing on African business issues. She is a leading commentator on business issues, trends and developments in Africa and has travelled extensively around the continent over the past two decades, visiting nearly 30 African countries to date.
She specialises in corporate engagements across Africa and has done research into regional economic developments, corporate and government investment trends, sector analysis for private clients and tracks business developments in Africa’s key markets.
She is also a popular public speaker on issues related to business in Africa and speaks to many of South Africa’s biggest companies on business trends and strategy, helping them to understand how to operate on the continent.