Wednesday 18 May 2016

Ministers "ashamed" of $15 b diamond looting - it will take a lot more than their shame to stop the looting. By Wilbert Mukori


Wherever we are invited, together with Information minister Christopher Mushohwe, we don’t want to be recognised, as we are ashamed because the diamond looting was done under our watch,” said Manicaland Provincial Affairs minister Mandiitawepi Chimene. She was referring to the $15 billion in Marange diamond revenue that disappeared according to Mugabe’s own admission.

 

Minister Chimene is just an empty drum making a lot of noise as her statement confirms;

  1. Since Mugabe’s admission of the wholesale looting and plunder of Marange diamonds on 3 March 2016, nearly three months ago; there has been no investigations, no one has been arrested, nothing. So if no one knows how the looting was done, those responsible, etc.; how does Minister Chimene know that the looting has stopped? By saying the looting “was done under our watch”, she is implying the looting has now stopped! There is not one iota of evidence to suggest looting has stopped.
     
  2. If the Minister has the power and authority, as the provincial minister, to stop the looting in Marange, which she is claiming to have otherwise why should she be ashamed of something that is beyond her to prevent, then why she not using that power and authority? The minister is as useless at stopping the looting in Marange as a chiwawa guard dog will be at stopping a hungry elephant herd invading a maize field. The minister is making a lot of noise now about the looted diamonds just like the chiwawa barking at the elephants long after they are gone.

In one of his recent articles the Japanese researcher and commentator, Ken Yamamoto, dismissed RBZ governor, Dr Mangudya’s pathetic attempts to deny that the bond notes are Z$ by another name and that the bond notes will maintain their 1:1 value with US$ for long. Ken argued Dr Mangudya was bullied by the “musketeer” regime to introduce the bond notes and now found himself in the awkward position of defending the move. Dr Mangudya was as helpless and lost as “a fence post tortoise”, said Ken.
 
”When you’re driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a tortoise balanced on top, that’s a fence post tortoise,” came the explanation. “You know he didn’t get up there by himself, he doesn’t belong up there, he doesn’t know what to do while he’s up there, he’s elevated beyond his ability to function, and you just wonder what kind of dumb arse put him up there to begin with.”
 
President Mugabe is renowned for promoting people like Dr Mangudya, Minister Chimene, etc. way above their level of competence for his own selfish and cynical purpose. It is his cynical answer to the Roman poet Juvenal’s age old challenge of “Who will guard the guards themselves (if they should become corrupt)?” (Quis custodiet ipsos custodies?) (Satire VI, lines 347–8).
 
Whilst Juvenal acknowledged the need for the guards to stop corruption and was concerned with the next problem of making sure the guards are not corrupted, Mugabe has turned the problem on its head. He has devised a system of making the guards are completely useless by promoting them way above their level of competence so that in performing their guard duties they are ineffective as a tortoise stuck up a fence post.
 
Mugabe has promoted officials so that right across the board the country’s public officials have all to the last man and woman proved useless at stopping him and his cronies looting, rigging elections and even committing mass murder. Over 30 000 innocent and defenceless Zimbabweans have been murdered for selfish political gain.
 
Corruption has been rampant in Zimbabwe for many, many years; by denying the problem, Zanu PF has allowed it to grow and spread like a cancer. When President Mugabe admitted that $15 billion was looted from Marange, few people were surprised. It is no secret that there has been wholesale looting and plundering of Marange diamonds; Africa Partnership Canada reported that Mugabe pocketed as much as $2 billion in 2012 alone!  
 
Most of the money Mugabe used to bankroll his and Zanu PF’s very elaborate and expensive 2013 vote rigging scheme was wealth looted from Marange diamonds.
 
Before independence the slogan of the day was the struggle continues – luta continua. Since independence it seems Mugabe and his cronies have adopted a new slogan, the looting continues – pilhagem continua. By promoting fence post tortoise like Minister Chimene who think by her head in shame she has STOPPED the wholesale looting that has been going on for years, there is no doubt that the looting will indeed continue for as long as we have fence post tortoises for guards.

6 comments:

  1. MDC opposition parties will not take part in 23 July 2016 Mazowe North by elections to replace the late Zanu PF MP Chidavaenzi.

    The MDC factions have to make up their minds; they cannot continue boycotting elections on the grounds that they want reforms implemented first, they have not said what these reforms are much less do anything to get them implemented. Come 2018 elections they say they will take part because the reforms will have been implemented, as if by magic!

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  2. The cash-strapped MDC-T has reportedly turned to its councillors and asked them to fund rallies addressed by opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai in Gokwe, Kwekwe and Kadoma last week.
    Insiders said MDC-T Kwekwe councillors and Midlands provincial leaders were each forced to pay up to $20 each to fund Tsvangirai's fuel, accommodation, venue and hiring of the public address system in Kwekwe and Kadoma.

    An MDC-T official said that many councillors were forced to borrow money to fund the rallies.

    Come the elections, Zanu PF will have billions of dollars from the wealth looted from Marange diamonds alone; even if the MDC councillors paid $200 each the party will never match Zanu PF’s funding.

    The only way to stop Zanu PF from looting is by implementing the democratic reforms and ensure transparency! Making sure the reforms are implemented is the logical thing to do but not if you are Tsvangirai, Biti, Ncube, etc., nothing is ever simple or logical with that lot- they are that incompetent.

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  3. Even a simpleton like Minister Chimene would know some of the details of who was doing the looting in Marange. As you rightly said, it is no secret that President Mugabe has racked in billions of dollars just as it is no secret that he spent billions of dollars in the Zanu PF election campaign in 2013. What was surprising was that President Mugabe even admitted there was looting; the normal thing would have been to continue to deny that there is corruption in the country.


    Some people have said, President Mugabe admitted $15 billion was looted because that is the amount he can blame on his political enemies Mai Mujuru and the others in Zim PF.


    It is one thing for President Mugabe to bully simpletons like Minister Chimene to do his bidding, after all they are simpletons; why should professionals like Dr Mangudya, Justice Rita Makarau, etc. allow themselves so badly compromised they end up as tortoise stuck up a fence post! Other professionals like Professor Jonathan Moyo, Senator Coltart, Lawyer Tendai Biti and many others have gone so far as to betray and sell-out.

    The Zanu PF dictatorship would have never taken root let alone survive for 36 years if it was not for the army of sell-outs from the simpletons to the individuals whom, in other societies at least, one would expect to know better. Our failure to condemn this culture of selling-out one’s own humanity and self-respect to a tyrant has only served to encourage sell-outs.

    We need to send out a clear message that all those who allow themselves to be the tortoise stuck up a fence post by a tyrants like Mugabe will have to explain how they got up the post first before they will be taken off! Even simpletons like Minister Chimene will have to explain why as provincial minister $15 billion could be looted under their nose and they never lifted a finger to stop it!

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    1. As a nation too many of our people have earned the reputation of Professor Jonathan Moyo of selling their own mothers for a price and be proud they had a mother to sell! This is why even men and women to whom society should look up to are they ones queuing to lick Mugabe's boots and kissing his back side! We must condemn the practice in no uncertain terms!

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    2. Tyrants are like crocodiles, they do best in muddy water; President Mugabe has eroded the rule of law to create a lawless society in which selling one's own mother for a price has become the new law and those doing it has been richly rewarded by the regime.

      We must thoroughly investigate these sell-out with the view of establishing the truth, punishing the guilt and compensating the victims. It would be totally irresponsible for us to allow the sell-outs, who have benefited from their ill-got wealth during the dictatorship, to do so again after the demise of the dictatorship!

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