The 1980s Willowvale Motor Industries scandal in which the Zanu PF ruling elite used or rather abused their positions of power and authority to buy new vehicles at the low controlled prices, ostensibly for official business, only to resell them on the black market making huge profits. The scandal was dubbed Willowgate after the infamous 1970s USA President Richard Milhouse Nixon Watergate scandal.
Talk of the Willowgate scandal and the tale is not done without mentioning Dr Fredrick Shama, he was one of the cabinet ministers bought and sold many cars only to lie about it under oath. Well Dr Shava is back in Zimbabwe and already he is embroiled in a new scandal.
"He (Shava) said he would not assume work at the ministry unless his salary arrears were cleared. He was owed about US$100 000. He, like other ambassadors across the world, had not received his salary and benefits for over a year," an official source told The Independent.
"The money has since been paid in full and this is why he assumed work on Tuesday last week."
Dr Shava has Zimbabwe’s ambassador to the UN since 2016 until his recent recalled to take up the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs.
As UN Ambassador, Dr Shava must have visited Washington DC and a tour guide must have pointed out some of the buildings involved in the infamous Watergate Scandal. Reminding him of Zimbabwe’s own Willowgate scandal in which he, Dr Fredrick Shava, was the star thieving scandal!
Only in a Banana Republic like Zimbabwe can a convicted thieving scandal go on to be the Republic’s UN ambassador and now Minister of Foreign Affairs. It is interesting to note that Dr Shava has not lost his wheel-dealing skills.
There is no doubt the issue of outstanding salary was never raised until his appointment as Minister of Foreign Affairs was publicly announced. When he cocksure it was unthinkable, even for the President of a Banana Republic to withdraw the appointment, Shava not only brought up the issue of outstanding salary but refused to take up his new job until the bill was paid in full.
“Matsotsi haagerani!” (Thieves do not trust each other and therefore are forever locked in a game of brinkmanship!) as one would say in Shona.
And, guess what, this time it was the President of the Banana Republic who blinked first! He is not one to readily forget or forgive the humiliation of this scandal.
As Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr Shava is now the boss of nation’s ambassadors and embassy staff whose salaries and allowance have not been paid for years, in many cases. However, if any of them should copy Dr Shava’s arm-twisting tactics; he will accuse them of being unpatriotic and ungrateful. He will descend on them like a tonne of bricks. And the President and the regime would expect him to do nothing less!
After all the regime has just instituted a “no work no pay” cabinet decision to punish the teachers and nurses who are withdrawing their labour to push their demands for better pay and working conditions. The plight of the embassy staff is nothing compared to that of the teachers and nurses; the latter’s slave wages cannot cover their most basic needs of food, shelter and transport and still the regime insist they must carry out their duties without failure!
So, Dr Shava has no qualms taking his cabinet seat to enforce “no work no pay” policy to force teachers and nurse to accept their slave wage of US$ 100 pm. He refused to work to demand his “US$ 100 000 one-year salary arrears”, he was probably paid as much pm in salary and allowances. He was not punished but has since been paid in fully!
Yeah up! My fellow Zimbabweans; ambassador and Foreign Affairs Minister, Dr Fredrick Shava, the star scandal in the Willowgate scandal is back in the Banana Republic. And to mark his return, he has a new, fresh or be it very familiar scandal of one rule for the povo and another for the filthy rich ruling elite. Dr Fredrick Shava the star scandal of Willowgate is back with a bang!
@ Obert Mpofu
ReplyDelete"That (the alleged rift between Mnangagwa and Chiwenga) is always wishful thinking by our detractors. There has never been a rift between the two leaders.
"I am the secretary for administration of the party and I co-ordinate all party activities. What I have seen between the two is that they are like brothers. They work very closely together in a very co-ordinated manner.”
Mpofu would have said exactly the same, word for word, about the relationship between Mugabe and Mnangagwa when the late dictator was the one resisting the running mate clause! Indeed, Mpofu would have said these things right up to the day Mugabe fired Mnangagwa as VP.
Now that the country’s judiciary has confirm a military coup is “legal, justified and constitutional” VP Chiwenga knows what to do. But until then, the official line is he and Mnangagwa “are like brothers, they work very closely together in a very co-ordinated manner!”
Dr Fredrick Shava demanded the US$ 100 000 salary arrears and no doubt it was the small change from his fat salary and allowance package, still he wanted it. He refused to go to work until every cent of it was paid and, no doubt, paid in US$ and not Z$.
ReplyDeleteYet the scandal will take up his seat in the cabinet and ruthlessly enforce the regime’s “no work no pay” designed to punish the teachers, nurses and civil servants forced to live on slave wages. He would not have it any other way particularly if paying the teachers, etc. would mean him not being paid his share of the spoils of power.
Dr Fredrick Shava is back home and he will find the looting of the Willowgate days has gone up several gears. Every time people say corruption is in overdrive, the Zanu PF ruling elite have always managed to find new ways, new gears, to loot in meet their insatiable greed. Still Dr Shava is a seasoned wheel-dealer and will have no problems muscling in and will soon be a Godfather of corruption in his own right. Demanding the US$100 000 salary arrears was just him putting his marker!
Speaking at the launch of the Agricultural Finance Corporation (AFC) Holdings Ltd in Harare yesterday, Mnangagwa said the project should "close the gaps" left by the sanctions imposed by the West on the country.
ReplyDelete"The AFC Holdings will also meet the financial gaps which resulted following the withdrawal of support after the imposition of illegal economic sanctions," he said.
"Now that the irreversible land re-form programme is behind us, collective focus must be on production, productivity, profitability and sustainability of the agriculture sector.
"To achieve this, my administration saw it fit to develop unique and responsive alternative financial solutions such as portfolios we are launching today. These and other strategies should make our agriculture sector work better for our economy."
This is not the first sanctions bursting policy Mnangagwa and his administration have launched, there have been countless other schemes. The reason why he is launching this scheme as the sanction bursting scheme is because all the others have failed to produce the desired results of reviving the country’s comatose economy. This scheme will fail as surely as the others before it and the regime will be back to blaming sanctions for all the nation’s economic ills!
Zimbabwe is a pariah state ruled by corrupt, incompetent and murderous thugs who have rigged elections to retain their iron grip on power. As long as the country remains a pariah state, there will be no meaningful economic recovery. The regime can blame the economic mess on sanctions that is just burying its head in the sand.
It is the people of Zimbabwe who are suffering the consequence of decades of misrule. It is the people who must demand the implementation of democratic reforms and put an end to this curse of rigged elections and pariah state.