Corruption still rife in Zim, shows report

CORRUPTION remains a major problem in Zimbabwe despite government pronouncements to fight the rot, a report by the US has revealed.

According to a 2018 Human Rights Report prepared by the US Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour, “police frequently arrested citizens for lowlevel corruption while ignoring reports implicating high-level businesspersons and politicians”.

The country continued to experience both petty and grand corruption, defined respectively by Transparency International Zimbabwe as an “everyday abuse of entrusted power by low- to mid-level public officials” and “an abuse of high-level power by political elites”.

The report also pointed to the fact that government had not enforced its policy requiring public officials to declare their assets and disclose interests in transactions that form part of their public mandate.

“In February, president Emmerson Mnangagwa, ordered a declaration of assets by senior officials. Arrests of senior government officials followed; however, most were Mnangagwa’s political opponents,” the report read.

The report also revealed that the redistribution of expropriated whiteowned commercial farms often favoured the Zanu-PF elite.

A separate Global Financial Integrity report states that the country lost an estimated $12 billion (R173bn) to corruption involving smuggling and illicit financial outflows between 1980 and 2010. |