Recently, there have been increased calls from various quarters in society for investigations into the alleged corruption of high-ranking officials in the government of Zimbabwe. In an unexpected turn of events, new demands are emerging, seeking an extension of this exercise to include scrutiny of the activities of HYPer-Opinionated-Citizens-Readily-Ignoring-Their-Every-Sins or HYPOCRITES.  Statistics show that many of the country’s citizens subscribe to the principles of this body (TI-Corruption Perception Index).

In a letter – a copy of the five-page document is in our possession – concern was expressed over the acceptance of HYPOCRITES’ questionable and widespread behaviour, which was clearly corrupt and underhanded. “We have observed that numerous dubious transactions are undertaken on a daily basis between HYPOCRITES and public officials. Payments are most frequently made to traffic police and to civil servants who issue identity and travel documents”.

HYPOCRITES were also accused of paying large sums to obtain learners’ and drivers’ licences.  Part of the letter reads:

“These payments, which are made for selfish gain, also reflect the blatant disregard for the safety of others in society.  With the right amount of cash, untrained ‘drivers’ are given free rein to maim and kill innocent road users.  Of course, the traffic officer can also be paid to report the incident as an ‘unfortunate’ accident.”

The letter also queries how HYPOCRITES have the means to make these payments.  Given the prevailing economic conditions and meagre salaries in general, the amounts paid were not justified. Payments to physicians were singled out for being exorbitant for various practices – issuing inauthentic medical reports, performing illegal procedures and hijacking medical equipment from state institutions for use by their private patients.

“In many instances, the HYPOCRITES who make these payments are well-off. They do not pay off officials out of necessity but to increase the comfort of their lives. The poor do not have electricity in their homes, let alone the means to pay employees of the power utility authority to excuse their homes from being affected by load shedding.”

“We are aware that the examples we have cited are the least of the rot, which runs deep,” says the letter. “Giving money to an official for a ‘coke’ is just the tip of the iceberg.  HYPOCRITES have been known to build one or five mansions on illegally acquired council land and they regularly import fleets of luxury vehicles duty-free.”

The writers of the letter stated that they were aware that HYPOCRITES had shown great outrage at recent revelations and allegations of corruption by senior state officials. Some were even behind the calls for investigations. This profession of beliefs and opinions that the HYPOCRITES themselves do not hold or live up to was strongly castigated as insincere. “Only HYPOCRITES take stationery from the office for their children, and then complain that government officials grab national assets for their personal use.  HYPOCRITES buy pirated music and movies and then get outraged that government officials seize ownership of assets without paying for them.”

The letter concluded with a demand for a full investigation into the extent of corruption in the country. The sweeping exercise would cover government officials and citizens at all levels. “If anyone is found guilty of corruption, it is proposed that legal proceedings be taken against them all, without fear or favour!”

The above two notices in Friday’s Herald caught my eye. The first makes a lot of sense to me. Harare has a huge water problem – as evidenced by the lack of water in our three-storey office block this week, as just one example. As the notice points out, “the city’s water supply infrastructure cannot satisfy the current demand. This is further worsened by infrastructure breakdowns and power outages.”

Surely, then, the city would recognise the need to fundraise and invest in infrastructure and power maintenance, repairs and development?

Meanwhile, a second notice warns suppliers against providing fire equipment without a SAZS Seal of Approval (Standards Association of Zimbabwe). This, the notice explains, is “aimed at protecting the public from substandard fire equipment that has found its way into the country.”

But why has this substandard fire equipment suddenly found its way across our borders? Because of a mad rush by motorists to get fire extinguishers, among other items, in time for the 1 December deadline of the new Road Traffic Regulations.

We’ve been looking for a month and have yet to find an SAZ approved fire extinguisher at any local hardware. How is the City of Harare going to warn suppliers of this issue? How will it enforce it, and if they do collect fines, how will that revenue be allocated?

I’m reminded of Thandi’s waste not, want not blog. What about fining people for using hose pipes, using that money to invest in water supply requirements, and dropping the whole fire extinguishers in vehicles issue altogether?

The City of Harare has recently been issuing public notices in the press informing residents of flats and apartments about its intentions to phase out the bulk meter billing system. This, I am certain – is a welcome and noble development among most tenants especially in view of the chaos caused by the Zim dollar – US dollar changeover. Tactless estimates were made and coupled with the new currency being beyond the majority’s reach – this saw tenants accrue and inherit impossible water and rates bills. The state department claims it is currently being owed close to $130 million.

What threatens to derail the process of people acquiring individualized water meters is the rigid precondition that all candidates first clear outstanding accounts of bills accrued on the bulk water meters before submitting their applications.

Meanwhile, last Tuesday Herald’s headlines screamed – Water disconnections loom – with City of Harare promising to soon embark on a massive water disconnection exercise. Flats have been encouraged to defray this by entering into some kind of payment plan with the department, to settle their arrears. The payment plan still includes putting in hefty down payments first before having your arrears staggered. Surely, if people had the thousands demanded by City of Harare, they would have simply paid in the beginning rather than live with this burden hanging over their heads and feeding off their peace of mind.

A lot of households in some of Harare’s most populous suburbs like Mbare, Mabvuku, Tafara, Chizhanje and Kuwadzana were disconnected a long time ago. Is this the best City of Harare can do? It is not as if this will solve the problem. If anything, one would imagine that the 2008-2009 cholera outbreaks left a lasting impression enough to disqualify the option of disconnecting water from the masses. Soon, most of Harare is going to be without running water, and then what? We know they badly need the money, but this cost recovery exercise is as good as futile as it is doomed to fail. People simply do not have that kind of money.

For a country once ravished and traumatized by cholera, I think holding us at ransom with this threat is not the wisest thing to do. City fathers really need to find lasting solutions other than allowing COH to hold the cholera noose above our heads. Essentially that is what they are saying; pay or get ready to die.

I think it is high time the COH cut its losses, calls it quits and moves on. Letting go of all that money would certainly be hard, but that does not dismiss the necessity of doing it. There are times in life when it is more logical to stop doing something that is already failing in order to reduce the amount of time and money being wasted on it.

As a state department, COH has a lot of leeway to exercise that kind of ‘leniency’. I mean, besides the fact that it might be the smartest thing to do, I think it is only fair because these debts were especially a result of circumstances beyond anyone’s control. Everybody knows that the country’s general economic downturn with the subsequent dollarization contributed immensely to these problems, and this is so widespread to the extent that what you can count on one hand, is those who actually do not owe anything to COH.

Much as the COH is insisting on going on like someone who has been grievously wronged, they must remember that we have all had to cut our losses. For instance, imagine what would happen if all former Zim dollar account holders started hectoring the banks about conversion and compensation for all the trillions they lost.

My other submission is, just how legal is the exercise of using estimates (which greatly contributed the huge debts people accrued in the first place). If it is, I think citizens deserve a chance to challenge the validity of charging people what they did not consume. A good way forward is for COH to put good billing systems in place, then start charging reasonably for actual usage. They would be amazed how much people would be motivated and willing to cooperate when given a chance to start on a fresh slate.

Moreover, if COH simply writes off what it is supposedly owed, psychologically this is enabling and good for the ratepayer because their contributions become more meaningful when no longer pitted against an impossible debt that they will never be in a position to offset in this lifetime. Picture this, say someone owes COH an interest- accruing debt of $4000, paying $25 in a month against this is like a drop in the ocean, which does not do much to motivate anyone to pay any more. It is like trying to squeeze water out of a rock, literally. Let’s get real; the majority of citizens either do not have regular sources of income or are civil servants, earning less than $300 per month. With issues of rent, school fees and basic existence, you do the math.

Khadija Sharife writing for the Harvard International Review:

Somewhere in my closet, taped across a small cardboard and sealed in a transparent casing, is a $50 billion Zimbabwean note. Purchased two years ago at a local bookstore for R21 ($3), this ‘made in zimbabwe’ wonder at the time had the purchasing power of two eggs, or a loaf of bread, in a country where inflation hit the 231 million % mark. An unemployed lawyer working a street hawker in SA expressed outrage that I would spend $3 to acquire it. ‘That money is life or death back home,’ he said. But there’s bigger money in the making – and for the taking. Mugabe Inc. has once again, in anticipation of forthcoming elections, vigorously begun to engage in exploitation through ‘primitive accumulation’ of resources via war vets, corrupt corporate execs and political cronies.

Prior to the discovery of diamonds, specifically Marange — estimated to be one of the world’s largest diamonds capable of yielding as much as $1.7 billion in revenues annually, the big kahuna was land. The bulk of large-scale commercial farms seized by Mugabe’s war vets, using the rhetoric of social justice, were not redistributed to those previously dispossessed by the colonial government. Instead, a new politics of dispossession took form through the politicisation of rural poverty, equating the ‘public interest’ with the nationalist vocabulary serving elite political interests. This time around, legal concessions to Marange have been voided, with two South African companies granted right of access via fraudulent licenses.

One company in particular, New Reclamation, has engaged with the Zimbabwean government through a joint venture called Mbada. The company’s operating arm, Grandwell Holdings Ltd, has been created a Global Business Category II (GBCII) entity, essentially a paper company, using Mauritius as the ‘tax haven’ of choice. As the Zimbabwe Mining and Development Corporation (ZMDC) admitted, due diligence into internal financing mechanisms, beneficiaries and other critical details, could not be conducted as it was ‘a paper company registered in Mauritius.’ Such shell corporations act as passthrough conduits allowing for economic activities, including profits and transactions, to be disguised and transferred through to ‘ultimate beneficiaries’. GBCII companies are tax free enabling entities allegedly accruing tax to escape taxation, while facilitating the flow of profits to ultimate beneficiaries.

But Mauritius should better be classified a secrecy jurisdiction thanks to legal and financial ring-fenced services such as the provision of nominee shareholders. Basically, all private companies must have at least one shareholder, and one share. Unless these are bearer shares (according ownership to those physically possessing shares), such shares can be ‘represented’ by intermediaries nominated by ultimate owners or beneficiaries profiting from economic activities. The same applies to nominee directors. Mauritius kindly provides these mechanisms to foreign clients and entities deliberately cloaking specific activities.

As OCRA, an international corporation peddling secrecy vehicles itself reveals on its website, “Beneficial ownership is not disclosed to the authorities.”

For $1000, the company can access banking secrecy preventing the Zimbabwean government from ever accessing the true value and volume of diamond exploitation. Many companies like OCRA provide bank account signatories, professinal directors and other false fronts assembled to create the illusion of an active business. Mauritius claims to be within the bounds of the law having complied with the voluntary ‘on request’ only Tax Information Exchange Agreements (TIAE). While these are usually useless unless one already possesses the information required by external government authorities to investigate corporate and state corruption, in this instance, the South African government, if it decided to do so, could easily the corporate veil given that Grandwell’s details are already known. During an interview with Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai for the BBC, I learned that he ‘was hearing about it for the first time.’

The threat that corporate secrecy presents to Zimbabwe’s economy cannot be understated especially in anticipation of the desperate need for sustainable revenue for basic services and the impact of ‘primitive accumulation’ as a means of controlling the outcome of forthcoming elections. This time around, Zimbabwe stands a great chance for actual democracy and economic and political recovery: The power sharing agreement between ZANU-PF and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) coupled with the appointment of Judge Simpson Mutambanengwe at the helm of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), cultivates a growing environment of accountability and justice. But Mutambanengwe has declared outright that the ZEC requires financial resources to ensure that the processes and outcome is not disputed. Siphoned diamond revenues – to a ‘secrecy’ corporation where any number of war vets may be the ultimate beneficiaries, provides the old guard with unlimited millions – even billions, in financial resources that should be invested in justice not war, nor even – and this is what the Mugabe Inc hopes for, a forced peace.

My friend, being an entrepreneur, has established a t-shirt business. Of course anyone will tell you that the key to a successful retail business is marketing. So, a few week ago, she decided to launch her brand in style with a launch party.

As good citizens, we went to our local police station to get the necessary clearances. Now last year, the Co-Ministers for Home Affairs publicly announced that all anyone needed to get a police clearance for an event was to report the event, who was holding it and how long it would be. The Ministers even said that as this was being done in the interest of public safety, there would be no need to pay any fees. It sounded simple when they said it, and being the Ministers responsible for this, I would think that they knew best.

It even seemed simple when we went to the police station. We told them about the launch, what it was for, and who was the contact person for it. The police checked if the bar had the necessary council licences and we got our clearance.

The afternoon of the party, I received a call from the police informing me that we did not have any clearances and I was to report to the police station. It wasn’t a problem with the licences for the establishment, which were in order; the police had a problem with the company that owned the brand. The exact problem, the officer could not articulate, but it was imperative that we go to the police station immediately.

Panicking, I consulted the bar manager who went, came back and reported: “Ah, they want a bribe.”

The bribe was a couple of T-shirts for the desk sergeants and some officers. It seems a small price to pay to establish a successful business. But isn’t it a sad state of affairs when any service involving a government institution must also necessarily involve bribery?

While my friend could afford to hand over t-shirts to the policemen, what happens to those entrepreneurs who cannot afford to pay? It’s not just the police that are asking for bribes, almost every government department involved in the establishment of business from the Company Registrar’s office to the City of Harare itself is illegally extracting large sums of money and goods from entrepreneurs. Surely the government, and in particular the Ministry of Small to Medium Enterprises must understand that corruption is killing small businesses.

The policy of encouraging entrepreneurship is a laudable one, but it will not work as long as corruption is allowed to flourish. If our politicians really want economic recovery (for further looting opportunities), then before they start looking East for handouts, they must plug the leaks that are happening in their own back yard.

Some of the feedback we’ve received from members of the Kubatana community:

I’m very much worried about the so called ZESA load shedding especially in the area I live, Hatfield. Usually the cutoff is at 5.30pm and will be back at around 10pm and will also be off as early as 4.30am. We hardly use electricity. To my surprise the bills are just too much as we hardly use electricity. One wonders why such load shedding is like that in this area which is along the airport road. This road is usually used by government officials, diplomats, tourists, and investors. How can we have tourists and investors to this country when they are driving in the dark from the airport? This will obviously turn most of our potential investors and tourists away. Their first sight to the country of hope is just darkness and they will feel they will be throwing their money in the dark. My suggestion to this load shedding is that, cut offs should be done during the day, lets say from 9am to 4pm. Lets market our country for potential investors in light. I feel ZESA authorities should look into this matter with broad minds which are full of sales and marketing ideas. Lets market Zimbabwe to rebuild our economy.

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I am getting very agitated with the way Ruwa Local Board is managing the service delivery in the otherwise very quiet and potentially well managed surburb. For starters the board has simply resigned on the water provision aspect, they sit back and relax while the residents go for months on end without water. Awhile ago they used to provide water from a couple of boreholes located on the USAID side but those days are way behind us. Residents resorted to sink wells in their yards but due to the poor rainfall last season the watertable is now miserably low and all you get from the well is mud . . . is this not precipitating a cholera outbreak!!!! To add insult the board has the audacity to dispatch water meter readers for the drops that drip out of the taps once in a blue moon. The drips are so brown from the rusted pipes that you do not even dare use them for flushing the toilet because you will stain it forever. The refuse collection side is even more disappointing. They have a known schedule that the residents know and early in the morning on the particular day all households bring out the refuse outside their yards to be picked up . . . this is a mirage, the refuse is never collected for weeks on end. I just wish the Board could use their municipal police to announce in advance that they will not be picking up the refuse anytime soon and it stays hidden in the yards. I am so fed up of officials who sit in the office and do nothing except grow big tummies from the rates that we fork out every month.