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.