It\u2019s light years into the future. An extraordinary scientist \u2014 let\u2019s call him Dr ED \u2014 has done a big Eureka on tropical diseases. So it\u2019s no longer unusual to see drones carrying swarms of mosquitoes to hospitals, schools and refugee camps to cure malaria.<\/p>\n
But then, it\u2019s only here in Zimbabwe where everything \u2014 meaning a combination of nothing and anything \u2014 happens that you can believe such a thing will ever happen. Mosquitoes will always spread malaria, not cure it. That\u2019s just the way it is, simple.<\/p>\n
You have already heard how Zanu PF \u2014 this time led by a real ED \u2014 has been getting busy forming committees of people that it wants us to believe will be
\nfighting corruption. It all started when we were told that the ruling party\u2019s youth league had drawn up lists of high ranking members that it claimed were as
\ndirty as maggots. One of those people, Prisca Mupfumira, a former cabinet minister, has since been arrested and is currently in remand prison. At least, we
\nhave been made to believe that\u2019s where she is. That\u2019s hard to believe, though, when she comes to court dressed like she is a Harrods stakeholder, complete with
\na butterfly face-do.<\/p>\n
Mupfumira is innocent till proven guilty in a court of law, of course. But that doesn\u2019t say she didn\u2019t commit the array of crimes she is being accused of.<\/p>\n
There is a catch in there, too. Mupfumira isn\u2019t exactly on good letters with some of the chaps who happen to be managing the political game, so there is a very
\ngood chance that her recent arrest may not have been primarily motivated by her alleged criminal ways. History provides a useful lesson in this. In Zanu PF,
\nyou don\u2019t get arrested for criminal commissions or omissions, no. Rather, they haul you in for political sins, but more on this later.<\/p>\n
After the youth league \u201cdossiers\u201d and Mupfumira\u2019s arrest, you then heard the ruling party bigwigs talking about the formation of provincial committees to
\nexpose corrupt party members. The last time they said something about it, ED \u2014 that is President Emmerson Mnangagwa \u2014 was going to commission the committees, pretty like they do with big trash bins and small bridges during election time.<\/p>\n
He should have done that already, it seems. But with this Tokyo International Conference on African Development where he is holding \u201chistorical\u201d 15-minute meetings with the Japanese premier and what, what, the anti-corruption committees will have to wait a bit longer. But no-one except the circus goers is eager for the show. Precisely because that\u2019s what it is, a yawning circus.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s get the good points in a row right from the onset. It\u2019s a long throw to believe mosquitoes will be curing malaria. In the same way, it\u2019s a long haul to
\nbelieve that Zanu PF is being honest forming committees to fight corruption. It sounds bizarre and unbelievable. In fact, it sounds like an off-note mosquito
\nsinging that it intends to cure itself of the malaria parasite.<\/p>\n
What does that mean? You see, there is no way in which Zanu PF would ever investigate itself out of power. Chances are that, if the party started doing that in
\nearnest, almost all the chaps in there would be squirming in prison before you can say, \u201challelujah\u201d. Right from the top to the bottom of the party structures.
\nBring out a single member of the party \u2014 never mind the rank \u2014 who is clean and get the Titanic\u2019s black box as a reward. But since the Titanic had no black
\nbox, you know what it means.<\/p>\n
Corruption is a culture in Zanu PF. It\u2019s a way of life. Take it away and the party is as dead as a dodo. It\u2019s common cause that the party is full of cheats,
\nyes. But they aren\u2019t too dumb not to know that exposing themselves in such a way will land them in a manhole. It would be a self-defeating public relations
\nstunt for the party to start sniffing under its own armpits. The English have a phrase for that. Hanging your dirty linen in public.<\/p>\n
Besides, it\u2019s also futile to assume that Zanu PF can be fighting corruption on its own if you consider things from a different angle. We don\u2019t know of any prize-winning expertise or attributes within the party to be investigating corruption. Chanting slogans is a whole world apart from probing corruption. Rigging elections is, come to think about it, the anti-thesis of fighting corruption. These things can\u2019t happen together. It\u2019s like saying you can fight corruption by doing corruption. Pretty like saying a mosquito can cure malaria. It\u2019s a contradiction in terms.<\/p>\n
So there must be good reasons why Zanu PF has invented this new lie of fighting corruption through its own structures. For one, it\u2019s self-conceit. The cheats
\nthink that they will fool people by pretending to be fighting corruption. They know that they are almost exclusively to blame for the extent of corruption in
\nthe Zimbabwean fabric. But they also know that corruption is a very bad thing. Any person who would wake up and give a sustainable campaign to stem the graft
\nwould win the hearts of many. Lots of votes and sympathy too. In this sense, the strategy feeds well into the \u201cnew dispensation\u201d mantra. Too bad that people
\nare already seeing through the creaky cracks of the old dispensation papered up as new.<\/p>\n
Secondly, the new anti-corruption fable must be linked to the party\u2019s power politics. The party is in perennial election mode. The cheats are already looking
\nat 2023, the next election season, as if it\u2019s going to come yesterday. Using a stage-managed anti-corruption crusade is a good strategy to get rid of internal
\npolitical enemies. So, going forward, you will see lots of rivals being targeted, accused of corruption and even getting arrested and taken to court. They will
\nbe paraded as bad apples in a good basket even though the basket is, of course, as bad as the sum total of the apples.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s light years into the future. An extraordinary scientist \u2014 let\u2019s call him Dr ED \u2014 has done a big Eureka on tropical diseases. So it\u2019s no longer unusual to see drones carrying swarms of mosquitoes to hospitals, schools and refugee camps to cure malaria. But then, it\u2019s only here in Zimbabwe where everything \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":13098,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[38,128,530],"class_list":{"0":"post-13097","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-all-news","8":"category-community","9":"tag-zanu-pf","10":"tag-community","11":"tag-corruption"},"yoast_head":"\n