daniel chigunwe
WHILE the major cases of corruption have tended to make the headlines, the culture of corruption now being tackled effectively in Zimbabwe has been carried across a slew of amounts from a few dollars up to the headline grabbing millions.
The determination to investigate and prosecute all involved, regardless of whether they are a big shot or just a small shark, by the police, the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission and the Prosecutor General, shows that we are not tolerating or excusing any corruption.
This sort of attitude is needed as we continue clearing out the criminals and stop their crimes slowing Zimbabwe’s growth.
Sometimes an investigation just requires careful checking and some sort of audit process, that allows the honest to be ticked off the lists and the suspiciously dishonest invited to explain just what they are doing. Sometimes they can even be caught red-handed.
One exercise in progress is auditing the duty free import of personal motor vehicles by long-service civil servants below the top management ranks. The scheme has already been highlighted as helping to retain well-qualified and hard working civil servants and so has been considered a success.
Zimra has been checking up on the cars and while the honest majority have sighed and driven their cars up to a Zimra officer to be checked out, we have already seen those who probably sold them directly or indirectly being uncovered.
As the check is remarkably simple, just a look at the car with the owner standing by, all fiddles will be uncovered.
As with all schemes meant to help employees in both the private and public sectors, there have been those wanting to abuse the system or latch on to it to further other crimes.
Some civil servants went through the application process, but then for a price allowed a dealer or someone else to import the vehicle under their names.
This particular fiddle also saw civil servants selling the vehicle before the minimum holding time was reached if they wished to retain the duty rebate.
Then there were those who went commercial over the corruption, with one woman from Zimra using her boss’ electronic signature to sign off on more than 400 fake rebate letters, generally held by car dealers.
While she has wisely gone to ground, probably in a foreign country, already assets in this country have been frozen so that eventually she will not profit.
This sort of bulk order corruption and forgery explains why some authorities suspect there could be as many as 3 000 cars and pick-ups that escaped duty illegally, although far fewer civil servants were involved.
In some cases importers were not even civil servants, just people outside Government service who held fake documents, and in other cases there have been civil servants startled to find they are on some list of importers when they never applied for the benefit, but whose identities were in effect stolen by criminals.
So the investigation has had many facets, but in the end those who may have acted corruptly and those who were outside criminals will all be accounted for and in the end Zimra will get the duty money, and the guilty will lose their cars.
Both sources will help the Government find the money for important projects.
The main point is that the investigations and prosecutions are shielding no one.
Prosecutor-General Justice Loice Mutanda-Moyo wryly noted that she and her office are certainly not going to shield civil servants as some have speculated. There are already six prosecutors on trial for bribe taking, so no one is being spared.
The culture of corruption, and the assumption that it is possible to get favours for bribes, has seen some other types of con-artist at work.
There is now a man in court accused of conning a number of people out of US$2 855. He was seeking low-level bribes, generally US$20 a shot, to guarantee employment by Harare City Council in a low level job of a named person.
There were people intending to help relatives and prepared to spend US$100 to have five listed, but part of the success of this low-level con artist was his cheapness, which meant people did not perform the sort of checks they might well have thought prudent for more expensive schemes.
In the end, the conned people found out there were no jobs to start with, and that the conman was not connected to the council.
But the corruption culture meant that those paying off the conman thought that paying what they must have known were illegal fees was just part of life, and that is sad.
We have seen over the decades similar con-schemes, especially around the civil registry offices, where smooth-talking touts take a small bribe and vanish, although some, once they have a willing payer, may ask for a top-up because they have to pay off a second registry clerk.
As people start realising that corruption is being tackled effectively we hope that these sort of attempts, to collect a bribe for a service that does not even exist, will be rejected.
Meanwhile, some Government offices, like Zimra tax offices, the civil registries and the central vehicle registry, will need to retain their public notices that they do not employ agents wandering around outside and their clients and customers need to talk to regular officers inside.
Checks are always important and most legitimate civil service offices and private businesses welcome such checks, especially if they can then have yet another conman arrested.
Those who think they are benefiting from someone else’s corruption need to think seriously since they are either being conned, or are being sucked into a deal that will see them join the con person in the dock.
