HARARE, – The Co-Minister of Home Affairs Theresa Makone says she is sick and tired of protecting and dry cleaning corrupt public officials in the inclusive government and wished her boss in the MDC-T party Morgan Tsvangirai was the President so as to name and shame the culprits.
“I am sick and tired of sanitising and dry cleaning corrupt people in this government. It is about time we should deal with corruption but there is no collective effort in this regard. I alone cannot eradicate corruption because it needs national effort. It needs political will starting from the executive cascading downwards.
As an individual I am committed to dealing with corruption once and for all, be it naming and shaming or expelling corrupt government officials, but it takes more than the Minister of Home Affairs ,it takes the whole cabinet to fight corruption.
“If Morgan Tsvangirai was the President today I could move on anyone, I mean anyone. No one would be beyond the reach of rule of law. The reason why this country’s economy deteriorated is because of corruption. We thought things were going to change when we joined the government but unfortunately nothing has changed, “she told Radio Vop in an exclusive interview in Harare on the sidelines of a diplomatic golf tournament prize presentation by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai Saturday evening.
Minister Makone said she is facing stiff resistance from ZANU (PF) senior officials in addressing corruption.
“There is a sense of impunity that pervades the whole government, because the people that ruled this country for the past three decades have not been able to arrest public officials, or to try to address the problem or bring justice to perpetrators of corruption, therefore these people feel protected and as long as that political protection exists, what I might want to do as Home Affairs minister becomes useless, “she said.
According to records unveiled by Transparency International Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe is number 134 out of 178 most corrupt countries being the second worst corrupt country in Southern Africa, and has scored 2,4 out of 10 points on fighting corruption a figure which shows that nothing is being done to curb corruption. On the global integrity index the country scored 33 out of 100 in terms of implementation of anti-corruption measures. – Radio VOP
