By A Correspondent- Citizens Coalition for Change legislator for Mount Pleasant Fadzayi Mahere yesterday blasted the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission for coming up with a shoddy report for 2022 as it has zero exposes on the corruption and illicit financial flows that are draining the country of US$2.8 million a year.
She said this during the debate on the 2022 ZACC report arguing that ZACC had clearly shown that it was captured as it was silent on serious corruption cases.
“Section 255 of the Constitution makes it abundantly clear; they have an obligation to investigate and expose corruption. When all is said and done, we saw zero exposé reported in the 2022 report. This is not withstanding a plethora of corruption incidents,” Mahere said.
“On some of the data that comes out in that report, you will see that only 147 cases were referred to the police. That is done in a country that is losing US2.8, almost US3 billion. What is ZACC doing? Why are they being funded if only 140 cases are referred to the police?……..
“What we see is that the sentiment exhibited by public that ZACC is actually captured right at the top and we are going to see that and when the 2023 report comes out, we expect ZACC to be attending to particular cases. We expect the 2023 report to cover the gold mafia scandal. They cannot shy away from important corruption cases that were exposed and reported by others because they are politically captured. So, we expect ZACC to do more. This report simply does not meet the constitutional standard,” she said.
Full contribution:
HON. MAHERE: Thank you very much Hon. Speaker, the report of the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission is of concern indeed, in light of the fact that Zimbabwe loses USD2.8 million to illicit financial flows and corruption every single year.
We would have expected to hear more from the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission concerning what they are doing especially in light of their constitutional prerogative. Section 255 of the Constitution makes it abundantly clear; they have an obligation to investigate and expose corruption. When all is said and done, we saw zero exposé reported in the 2022 report. This is not withstanding a plethora of corruption incidents.
The Ministry of Finance Prof. M. Ncube even reported in the operative period that a US100 million was lost every single month to gold leakages. The report is silent on all that. We are aware of the COTTCO scandal involving a former Hon. Member from ZANU PF, Hon. Wadyajena, there is absolutely nothing said in the report about these key important cases.
What the Constitution requires in Section 257 is that this report should include particular matters relating to improper conduct in the public and private sectors. There is not a single particular matter that has been reported in this report. All we hear is engagement and networking. This report is not meant to be a window dressing or box ticking exercise.
We are supposed to ensure that they expose corruption. It cannot be the case that the incidence of corruption that are taking place in Zimbabwe should be investigated by ZEC, actually investigated by external investigators. We saw the same report in 2022 that went into detail around corruption and a number of other issues including an exposé on Kuda Tagwirei, we would have wanted to see some sort of exposé attempt by ZEC to do something.
The conduct we have seen on ZEC is that whenever corruption takes place at the high levels, they suddenly become incapacitated. They are making low level officials sign, that is what we hear in their report. They do not speak about the important corruption cases that are taking place and are robing this country of important funds.
On some of the data that comes out in that report, you will see that only 147 cases were referred to the police. That is done in a country that is losing US2.8, almost US3 billion. What is ZACC doing? Why are they being funded if only 140 cases are referred to the police?
If you remember yesterday, NPA Report, the prosecutor is saying all these economic crimes that come before them, they have only completed 38%, a low clearance rate together with the inactivity on the part of ZACC is what is costing corruption. So, we see that the report by ZACC proves the inefficiency in their failure to attend to their constitutional mandate yet it does not stop there. If you look at the majority of, I believe it is part 5 where they are dealing with combating corruption, you can see that ZACC sits back and expects corruption to be reported to it, they are waiting for complaints to come to them. However, section 255 of the Constitution says that they are meant to be proactive and go and investigate but they completely failed.
What we see is that the sentiment exhibited by public that ZACC is actually captured right at the top and we are going to see that and when the 2023 report comes out, we expect ZACC to be attending to particular cases.
We expect the 2023 report to cover the gold mafia scandal. They cannot shy away from important corruption cases that were exposed and reported by others because they are politically captured. So, we expect ZACC to do more. This report simply does not meet the constitutional standard.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Thank you Hon. Mahere but next time you should avoid mentioning the names of the people who are not here and who cannot defend themselves. The Insider