In 2016 Robert Mugabe confessed that the country had been swindled out of US$ 15 billion in diamond revenue alone. He let loose a cat amongst the pigeons since he had been at the front of those denying that corruption was a problem in Zimbabwe as he insisted that the sanction was the root cause of Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown. The admission silence him and his apologist!
When President Mnangagwa failed to revive the nation’s economy he has revive the old swan-song of blaming sanctions for the economic ills. This time it was ZACC chairperson Justice Loice Matanda-Moyo who has reminded the nation once again that corruption not sanctions is the root cause of the economic meltdown.
“Informally, we have now identified over US$7 billion worth of property and cash all over the world which were siphoned by our former leaders, current leaders, private sector and individuals. So this information we only got informally, so now we have to formalise the process so that we start the processes of repatriating the monies back home,” she told reporters.
“So the purpose of this training is to equip our officers with the techniques of repatriation of stolen funds. This workshop is sponsored by the World Bank and UNODC and its from Star, which is Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative. So they are going to teach us on the various jurisdictions, how we can interact with those various jurisdictions, who we can engage and who we can actually work with in order to ensure that all those monies are repatriated back to Zimbabwe for the benefit of Zimbabweans.”
Please note, the US$ 7 billion ZACC is talking about here is property and cash looted from Zimbabwe and starched outside the country. It does not included any of the palatial mansions; the fleet of posh cars; the walk wardrobes full of Gucci designer shoes, 45 gold watches, diamonds, etc.; business empires; the bundles of cash is the safe at home and in the local banks; etc.
Mugabe’s Blue Roof palatial mansion alone has been valued at US$2 to 4 billion. So if we accounted for all the loot from the late dictator, his family right down to the small-time looters like Wicknell Chivayo who swindled ZESA out of US$5 million to buy designer shoes; the total haul will be well in excess of US$ 100 billion!
The nation will never know how many billions of dollars has been wasted over the last 40 years of the globe trotting, the extravagant lifestyle, failed business ventures, etc. My guesstimate is another US$ 100 billion.
Just to put the US$7 billion siphoned outside the country into perspective. This would have paid for the design, build, equip and commissioning of Batoka Gorge Hydro Power Station, costing at US$3.5 billion; build and commission Hwange stage 7 and 8, costing at US$ 2.5 billion; upgrade Kariba South Hydro Power Station, costing at US$0.5 billion and still have US$0.5 left to upgrade the country’s three coal fired power stations in Bulawayo, Munyati and Harare.
With the above power generating capacity, Zimbabwe would have met the country’s electricity power needs. Even with the serious drought of the last three years which has forced Kariba Dam Hydro Power Station to generate at 30% of its capacity; augment that with the 30% from Batoka Gorge plus the 100% from the thermal power stations the country would have avoided switching off power supply to any of the wealth producing sectors.
The 18 hours, across the board, load shedding regime instituted by ZESA these last three years has costed Zimbabwe US$10 billion per year, at least, in lost production in alone! If we fact in the cost of import substitutes, all paid in foreign currency, add the billions of siphoned out of the economy by the looting brigade, etc.; there is no deny that corruption is the root cause of Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown - not sanctions!
It is interesting to note that whilst the chairperson of ZACC Justice Loice Matanda-Moyo was publicly admitting the seriousness of corruption in Zimbabwe; her husband, Foreign Minister, Lt General (Rtd) Sibusiso Moyo, President Mnangagwa himself and the rest of the Zanu PF apologists have continued blame sanctions!
Mnangagwa and his team have learned from the grandmaster of hypocrisy and meaningless double talk, Robert Mugabe. The real big surprise here is that the some AU and SADC leaders have been naive and gullible to believe the sanctions nonsense!
The last 40 years have been years of criminal waste of human and material resources through gross mismanagement and rampant corruptions the nation has paid dearly for this, the national economy has all but collapsed send unemployment soaring to 90% and forcing millions into abject poverty.
The country must put an end to corrupt, vote rigging and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship, the root cause of all the economic and political madness of the last 40 years. We need to implement the democratic reforms designed to dismantle the dictatorship and replace it with a democratic system of government in which the freedoms and rights of all are respected and such evils as corruption are dealt with and not swept under the carpet to fester and grow.
ZACC will never undercover the true looted amounts or recover most of the US$ 7 billion it has uncovered; not as long as Zanu PF remains in office. Zanu PF government leaders, to whom all ZACC officials are beholden and answerable to, are the Godfathers of corruption.
The top brass in the army, for example, have earned thousands of dollar a month form its diamond concession and other commercial activities. As one of the senior army officers Lt General Sibusiso Moyo benefited of the army’s strictly off the record diamond mining activities. As stated above, ZACC chairperson Justice Loice Matanda-Moyo is the wife Foreign Minister, Lt General (Rtd) Sibusiso Moyo; she knows that a lifestyle audit of her family will show they have a lot more wealth than the family’s tax-returns suggest!
@ Luke Tamborinyoka
ReplyDelete“That the value of the massive bounty stashed outside the country by this criminal network is double the country’s national budget vindicates our position that at the centre of the national crisis is corruption and not this empty rhetoric about the so-called sanctions. The ZACC revelations expose State capture by a close-knit and well-heeled political and business elite that has bled our country dry,” you say.
“Now that they know, we await ZACC to show its fangs by arresting and prosecuting this crooked lot that has milked our country and brought this massive suffering on the people.”
Luke you never seize to amaze me at just how naive, narrow, thick and slow you are! Do you serious believe that ZACC has ever arrest those responsible for robbing the nation blind and end the scourge of corruption?
Do you know that ZACC chairperson Justice Loice Matanda-Moyo, is the wife of Foreign Minister, Lt General (Rtd) Sibusiso Moyo, the spokesperson of the November 2017 military coup which he insisted was “a military assisted transition - not a coup”. As one of the top brass in the Army, he got his share of the Army’s diamond looting activities in Chiadzwa and Marange.
Even you, naive and narrow-minded as you are, do not expect Justice Loice Matanda-Moyo to recluse herself whilst the other ZACC officials grill her husband as to the true source of his vast wealth from?
By the way, your former boss, the late Morgan Tsvangirai, and the other MDC leaders have a lot to answer for because the looting continued during the 2008 to 2013 GNU and they did nothing to stop it.
Indeed it was Tsvangirai who gave the diamond mining activities in Marange and Chiadzwa a clean bill in 2012. A few weeks after his inspection he spend a few days on one of these floating luxury hotel sea cruise.
The late Zanu PF MP, Edward Chindori-Chininga’s parliamentary report revealed serious wholesale looting in Marange and Chiadzwa the exact opposite of what Tsvangirai had said. No prize for guessing who paid for Tsvangirai’s see cruise!
The government of Zimbabwe will soon roll out “garrison or cantonment shops” for serving security sector members as a way of cushioning them from the vagaries of inflation.
ReplyDeleteIn a weekly post-cabinet briefing to journalists in Harare, Finance and Economic Development minister Prof. Mthuli Ncube said the cantonment shops are different from silo or people’s shops which government promised to introduce last year but have not taken off.
So those in the security sector need “cushioning from the vagaries of inflation” but the rest of the population does not.
According to a recent WB report, 90% of our people are poor with 34% of them living in extreme poverty. Most of those in the security sectors are not counted among the poor much less amongst those living in extreme poverty.
What this regime is doing is completely abandoning the poorest of the poor to suffer and die! This is morally unacceptable particularly coming from a regime that rigged the elections and therefore has no mandate to govern the country!
The people must remember how government has looted NSSA pension funds, this is just another cow for the ruling elite to milk at the expense of the civil servants most of whom should be on government funded welfare schemes!
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