Zimbabweans should untiringly fight corruption as it is
currently deep-seated in most State institutions such as the police, National
Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and the Judiciary, President Emmerson Mnangagwa
said yesterday.
Speaking in a special Independence Day interview with ZBC
at State House, the Head of State and Government said the various hurdles in
successfully uprooting the scourge mean “the fight is so wide and deep”.
“I now realise that corruption is deep-rooted. I thought
that by pronouncing that let’s fight corruption those who are corrupt will fear
and stop; it’s not like that. It’s so rooted that you have to fight it from A
to Z. (In) most systems, structures and institutions, there is an element of
corruption,” said President Mnangagwa.
“To fight it, you need the police to unearth, investigate;
but also within the police, there is corruption. The next stage, you need
prosecution; that is the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) – they need to
prosecute the cases, so once the cases pass the corruption in the police, it
has to pass the corruption in the NPA, then it must go to the courts and there
is an element of corruption in the courts, so the fight is so wide and deep.”
Fighting corruption, he said, was a collective
responsibility. The President also said his office would not interfere with
judiciary processes.
“However, I am happy that you find people who support the
fight against corruption in all these institutions. In the police, not
everybody is corrupt; in prosecution institutions, not everybody is corrupt; in
the judiciary, not everybody is corrupt. So because of that we are gaining
traction slowly, not as speedily as I had expected. As you realise, there are
so many cases of corruption now in the courts,” he added.
President Mnangagwa expressed frustration at the snails’
pace of some of the cases before the courts.
A clean society, he added, would help the country to
“develop faster” and lead to satisfactory service delivery.
Current and former Harare City Council officials who abused
the $144 million loan facility are likely to face the music, said the
President.
“We had a loan extended to Harare City Council by the
Chinese for sanitation and water reticulation.
“That money was then used to buy cars and other luxuries.
It didn’t address the issues for which the money had been given. So when I met
my brother and colleague President Xi Jinping (Chinese President) and discussed
about this loan, I wasn’t aware that had happened and so I said, ‘Mr President,
the loan was fully disbursed’, and he said, ‘my brother, the money was not used
for what we had given you for.’ I was not aware people bought cars, some having
workshops which had nothing to do with sanitation.
“Those who spent the money are not in office anymore, but
they are likely to be followed.”
President Mnangagwa has committed to fight corruption by
strengthening and restructuring key institutions such as the NPA, the Zimbabwe
Anti-Corruption Commission (Zaac) and the Special Anti-Corruption Unit in the
Office of the President and Cabinet. Sunday Mail
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