By Wilbert Mukori- “Gold Mafia Episode 1: Laundry Service” will be aired on Al Jazeera TV tonight Thursday 23 March 2023, an advance version was already circulating on the social media.

There are six take home points from Episode 1:

1. The gold smuggling was sometimes as a foreign currency earning and sanctions busting scheme. Zimbabwe is free sell gold and be paid in foreign currency on the international market and any problems it faced selling gold will be the same selling diamonds or whatever. A lot of the foreign currency used to pay for the gold in dirty money and the lack of proper records, checks and balance have encouraged this. Corruption is rampant and once again sanctions are being used as a feeble excuse and scapegoat.

• The documentary producers estimated the country gold industry was worth US$2 billion per year and 80% of is lost to gold smugglers in which the gold mafia, the gold dealers and their political enablers the ruling elite, rack the lion’s share of the proceeds, the middle men and panners get small change and the state gets nothing!  at all. It is what the gold dealers have been doing with their loot that is particularly worrisome!

• Kamlesh Pattni, alias Brother (or Pastor) Paul, a Kenyan of Indian descent, is heard boasting in the documentary of how he helped President Arap Moi “survive” politically by using the fortune he amassed laundering Kenya’s gold (most of which looted from DRC). He used the looted wealth to bribe Moi’s political opponents and critics. When there was finally regime change in Kenya, Pattni emigrated to Zimbabwe and has plied his gold laundering services for the benefit Mugabe and now Mnangagwa. Of course, he and his fellow gold dealers have and are playing their part in helping Zanu PF “survive”.

• When Morgan Tsvangirai failed to get even one meaningful democratic reform implemented in five years of the 2008 to 2013 GNU people attributed it to the MDC leaders being breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent. Many thought they had learned their lesson especially when the likes of Tendai Biti and David Coltart public admitted to the folly of participating in the 2013 elections without first implementing the reforms. But when MDC leaders including Biti and Coltart participated in the 2018 elections knowing fully well that doing so would only give Zanu PF legitimacy and contrary to their own condemnation of the act, it was clear Zanu PF controlled not just state institutions like ZEC and the Police but the opposition body politic too!

• Uebert Angel, self-proclaimed prophet, was appointed Zimbabwe’s “First Ambassador at large, assigned to promote Zimbabwe brand” by President Emmerson Mnangagwa himself. Al Jazeera called him “Diplomatic Mafia” because he was offering his diplomatic bag to ferry dirty money from one country to the next. Angel “prophesied” that Mnangagwa would win 2018 elections and 2023 elections! This is more than just a prophesy, it’s the gold mafia flexing their humongous financial muscle.

• “The gold Mafia is bigger than the government, bigger than any of the authorities,” boasted one gold dealer. As much as leaders like Emmerson Mnangagwa would like to believe they are the ones controlling the gold Mafia and governing Zimbabwe, it is the Mafia who are calling the shots. Indeed one Mafia member dismissed VP Chiwenga as a “dunderhead”! The truth is without implementing the democratic reforms first holding elections will never deliver any meaningful political change because the Mafia will use their financial muscle to keep the dunderheads in power.

The Al Jazeera documentary has revealed the extend of corruption in Zimbabwe today is not only deep rooted, the rot has spread to every segment of society, but worst of all the Mafia thugs employed by the ruling elite to do the looting have surpassed the employers, they are now the masters. The tail is wagging the dog and, worst of, out of spite! 

We must condemn the 2023 elections now, without having not having to wait for predetermined outcome, and demand the setting up of a new GNU tasked to implement all the democratic reforms. We need to reset our political system because nothing of value will ever come out of the present system that is rotten to the core!