In the end, the truth will always come out or as
one would say in Shona “rinemanyanga hariputirwi!”
The truth about the wholesale looting that has
been going on in Chiadzwa and Marange is coming out! In March President Mugabe
admitted the country had lost $15 billion worth of revenue due to the looting
of diamonds.
A few weeks later Ministers Kasukuwere and
Jonathan Moyo added some meat to the bone when they said “a chunk” of the $15
billion was looted by former VP Mujuru.
Finance Minister, Patrick Chinamasa, told BBC
HardTalk there was no looting the $15 billion was all due to “mispricing”! No
one believed him because his ministry was still getting no revenue from the
mining activity now going on 24/7.
“The Auditor-General’s Office has commissioned a
top auditing firm to investigate alleged looting of proceeds from diamond
operations in Marange, with the results of the probe expected by September,”
reported Zimeye on 16 July, 2013.
“Ms Chiri said her office had notified the Mines
and Mining Development Ministry of the “full co-operation” expected from
Government departments during the audit.”
What raised eyebrow of anyone with seeing eyes is
that the looting according to the President’s admission has gone on for the
last six years and the surprise is that the Auditor-General’s Office which is
known for its thoroughness had failed to pick up the looting in all these years
of such a breathtakingly huge amount. The suspension is that this diamond
mining activities were deliberately kept away from the Auditor-General who has
the statutory duty to audit all government and government related institutions.
Mai Mujuru has since confirmed that the government
has indeed been very secretive about the country diamond mining activities in
Marange and Chiadzwa.
"There were companies operating there like
Ainjin, who sent them?” Mai Mujuru told a rally in Mutare.
"Only the President knows because there was no body that processed licenses for them.
"It was only between the President and the Minister only," she said.
"Only the President knows because there was no body that processed licenses for them.
"It was only between the President and the Minister only," she said.
The nation awaits the audit investigation report
in September; if it too does not suffer the fate of many other similar reports such
as the Chihambakwe report of the Gikurahundi massacre, it has yet to see the
light of day.
Still the nation knows there has been wholesale looting of
Marange diamonds at a scale the world has never seen. Mai Mujuru may try to
distant herself from the looting but she knows when the story of Marange comes out
as will the Gukurahundi she will be up to her eyes in looted diamonds!
Imelda Marcos and her late husband Ferdinand Marcos are one of the national leaders who corruption and greed has become a legend. She is renowned for her collection of over 3 000 pairs of shoes and we all know how much Grace Mugabe loves a Gucci design shoes. Her foot is “so delicate she wears nothing else” she said.
ReplyDeleteYear right; where in Chivhu Mudara where she grew up, did she buy Gucci design shoes?
The Marcos rob the Philippine blind during their stay in power from 1965 to 86. According to the Philippine Daily Inquirer October 1999 report they fortune was worth USD 10 trillion or 127 times more than the Philippines’ GNP in 1998. The Philippines is to this day one of the poorest countries on earth and has lagged miles behind its neighbours in the region. The country has become a source of cheap labour doing mostly the three d-jobs – dirty, dangerous and demeaning. Given the sheer extend of the wholesale looting by the Marcos it is not surprising the nation has struggled to recover economically given the mountain of the debt burden the nation inherited from the Marcos.
One is grateful that the IMF, WB and other financial institution have long stopped giving Zimbabwe financial assistance; I shudder to think how much bigger than the present $10 billion the national debt would be today. No doubt most of it would be for Gucci shoes! Still the nation is going to be shock how much of the diamond windfall has been looted.
If the Mugabes’ amassed fortune does not beat the Marcos’ US$ 10 trillion then it will not be too far off the mark. We already have millions of Zimbabweans all over the globe competing for the three-d jobs! It will take generations for the Zimbabwe national economy just to get back to what it was in 1980 when the nation attained its independence assuming the country ever gets its act together to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship.
It is now 30 years since the Philippines deposed the corrupt dictator Ferdinand Marco and his family but the stench of the dictatorship still linger on and on like the smell of the skunk. Unless we do a thorough job of implementing the democratic reforms I have a feeling that the Mugabe dictatorship will be more like the spots of a leopard which are embedded it the animal’s very genealogy!
The curse of the dictatorship is now in the DNA of Zimbabwe’s political system; it can be suppressed for one or two generation but will resurface again and again to wreak havoc on the nation.
The diamond find in Marange and Chiadzwa has been valued at $800 billion according to so reports the world will be shocked to find out how corruption has allowed a handful of individuals to reap all the benefit whilst the rest of the people suffered. What will be even more shocking is how we the people have allowed this to go on under our own noses for all these years!
DeleteWhen President Mugabe admitted that $15 billion was looted in March, it hardly registered in the minds of millions of Zimbabweans. It is this laissez faire attitude that has allowed the looting in Marange to get completely out of hand.
The nation is right now in the middle of a new euphoria brought on by the street protests, it is a notable achievement that people have finally came out to protest the 90% plus unemployment, the looted $15 billion, etc. Ask them what they want to happen to put things right and most of them do not have a clue, they are even surprised to be asked.
It has taken all their intellectual powers and physical courage to protest in the street they are clearly worn out mentally and physically to think what next! It is therefore almost certain that the street protest will bring no meaningful change just as independence brought no change or the 2008 GNU.
A nation that is so naive and gullible to allow billions of dollars of the nation's wealth to be looted in broad day light is a cursed nation. Hard as such reality are to swallow one has no choice but to admit we are a naive and gullible people; indeed refusing to swallow that reality will only make matters worse as one then waste time is futile denial instead of searching ways to address one's serious shortcomings.
I agree, Mai Mujuru and her late husband are corrupt. Sometimes I think President Mugabe even encouraged them to indulge in their corrupt activities just to entrap them. Their greed knew no bounce and so they entrapped themselves!
ReplyDeleteThere is no ex-combatant who did not know that General Mujuru looted the demob money, for example. So even before the idealism of the freedom and liberty which so many had fought for and so many lost their lives for was worn out, Mujuru was already undermining comrade spirit by cheating the many comrades who did not know what was happening.
Of course Mai Mujuru is up to her eyes in looted diamonds, at least she would be if she had managed her loot wisely. Whatever she and her husband have looted over the years she will be lucky to have 20% to show for it!
Mai Mujuru is shooting a warning shot at President Mugabe; she is telling him that she knows some details of the shenanigans of the wholesale looting in Marange enough to damage his reputation if tried to damage hers. The looting in Marange and Chiadzwa has been at such a monumental scale, it is impossible to see how even someone who is not particularly clever like Mai Mujuru would have failed to know there was something fishy going on here!
Zimbabweans have not done themselves any favours by failing to think through what the country needs to do to get out of this hell-hole Mugabe has landed us. Pastor Mawarire's demand that Mugabe must fire corrupt ministers is a clear sign that he really does not know what to do next. If push comes to shove Mugabe will fire 2 or 3 corrupt ministers and replace them with 4 or 6 (he loves a bloated cabinet) who are just as corrupt if not worse!
ReplyDeleteWe have had this corrupt and tyrannical dictatorship for 36 years for Pete's sake so why are all these people scratching their heads now as to what to do with the dictatorship!
The present revolution is not the first one, we have had many others notable the one in 1980 and 2008 they all failed to deliver freedom or democratic change because the people did not know what they wanted done. This revolution will too come to naught for the same reason!