By Nomusa Garikai| “Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) commander Lieutenant General Edzai Absolom Chanyuka Chimonyo is in India for medical treatment, local media has reported.

“Lt. Gen. Chimonyo is said to be suffering from lung complications and was airlifted to the Asian country recently.”

The report reminded the reader of VP Chiwenga’s now infamous decree banning Zimbabweans from seeking health care service outside the country.

“We will not export our patients. We will not make referrals (to foreign medical facilities) for our patients. It’s everybody,” said Chiwenga in September after taking on the Minister of Health Portfolio.

“Ministers are only about 20 but those who have been going out it’s you, you, me, altogether.

“That export bill was too high and that’s what we want to curtail. We want to do away with that, and it requires us to carry out restructuring from the village health worker right up to the quaternary hospital.”

VP Chiwenga is in China right now, his second health care trip this year alone. VP Chiwenga’s promise to stop “exporting our patients” was just hot air. 

Just as President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s repeated “zero tolerance on corruption”! is another blast of hot air. 

VP Chiwenga lives in the C&M mansion (before that it was C&J before he divorce his first wife and the mansion will have a new name because he is divorcing Marry, the second wife) and in the garage is a fleet of 6 posh cars. 

He has 45 golden watches. Whilst Grace Mugabe was obsessed about designer goods especially Gucci shoes – beside all the other luxuries like the sprawling Blue Roof mansion. For Chiwenga it is the very, very expensive watches that turns him on. 

Chiwenga has nearly US$ 250 000, all in USD, in just one bank account in Zimbabwe, according to the Court records in the ongoing divorce case with Marry. It is almost certain, he has other bank accounts in Zimbabwe and outside with cash, gold watches and other treasures.

No doubt Lt. Gen. Chimonyo, as a senior ZNA commander, has too amassed a respectable fortune, from the same source as VP Chiwenga and other ZNA top brass have amassed their fortunes. Chimonyo’s fortune may not be as large as that VP Chiwenga; he is playing catch-up!

It is one thing issuing a decree that no one should seek health care services outside Zimbabwe but quite another to enforce it; especially when the country cannot provide even the most basic health case services let alone the specialist services. And, most significant of all, when the individual seeking the services has the wherewithal to pay for it! 

VP Chiwenga defied his own decree not to seek health care services outside Zimbabwe precisely because he has the wherewithal to pay for it! The man is loaded and his obsession with very expensive watches; of course it down right stupid to buy 45 gold watches; is just a manifestation of one who has so much money and has run out of ideas of what to do with it!

If anyone is serious about stopping the VP Chiwenga, the Lt. Gen. Chimonyo, etc.; Zimbabwe’s filthy rich who are squandering billions of dollars on sprawling mansions, posh cars, luxury goods galore, health care services outside the country even for minor ailments, etc. etc.; we must first find the sources of their fabulous wealth. 

If the source of one wealth is legal and there are all the supporting documents including the tax returns to prove it; then, why not, let the individual spend their earned wealth as they please. 

However, if the lifestyle audit showed that the fabulous riches were not earned legally; then every dollar of the ill-got wealth must be taken away. And all those guilty of the illegal activities must be hunted down, tried in a court of law and duly punished. 

It is an open secret that VP Chiwenga, Lt. Gen. Chimonyo and all the other top brass in the Army have amassed their wealth from the ZNA’s diamond mining concession in Marange and Chiadzwa. Similar concession were granted to the other security services sectors like the Police and CIO and to a select Zanu PF leaders. The first concession were granted back in 2006 and there are still valid to this day.

Indeed, the diamond mining concessions have been ruled a great success, as far as this Zanu PF government is concerned, the idea has since been replicated in other areas.

It was the late Zanu PF MP, Edward Chindori-Chininga who, in a parliamentary report in 2012, shed some light on the very nature of these diamond mining concessions. The report showed the miners kept no record of the quantity and quality of the diamonds mined, where the diamonds are sold and for how much, who the beneficiaries were and how the spoils were shared, etc. With no records, there are no cooperate or individual tax obligations. 

The 2012 GNU parliament read and all other parliaments since have known of Chindori-Chininga’s report and have all done nothing about it. Silence, in this case, is consent. 

The wholesale looting of diamonds and other resources in Zimbabwe has all been approved by both the Zimbabwe cabinet and parliament. Corruption is institutionalised! 

People like VP Chiwenga know they will never get away with naming the ZNA mining concession as the source of they wealth when there are no records to prove he receive a single dollar from the activity. He knows the reason for keeping no records was to hide the truth, to hide the institutionalised corruption. 

Of course, every one knows that what is going on in Marange and Chiadzwa is illegal, no democratic and competent government in the world would ever grant a blank cheque to anyone to loot and plunder. And it is for this reason that the top brass in ZNA and all the other beneficiaries of the institutionalised corrupt in Zimbabwe will never allow any democratic reforms and regime change in Zimbabwe. They fear a lifestyle audit will reveal the corruption and rot in the country. 

If VP Chiwenga was serious about ending health care travellers and Mnangagwa was serious about stamping out corruption then they must demand a lifestyle audit for all citizens. 

Both President Mnangagwa and VP Chiwenga will never lift a finger to end institutionalised corruption because they are the Godfathers of corruption. 

As long as Zanu PF remains in power, Zimbabwe will never ever stamp out corruption. Never!