By Chris Veremu
Zimbabweans everywhere are waking up to the true meaning of poor governance.
The salaries and benefits paid to chiefs of government parastatals which are known as sink holes for government funds have left the government with egg on its face and a public seething with anger.
It does not help matters that the MDC which was tasked to supervise or superintend over these salaries via the Parastatals Ministry did absolutely nothing about them for the past five years of their flirtation with governance, giving ammunition to those who say the difference between the two parties making up the GNU was in name only.
A couple of months before the elections the Minister responsible, one Gorden Moyo insisted that parastatal bosses should be paid no more than USD 5 000 per month. This is a princely sum in its own right. Question becomes why did nobody including of same Moyo do any follow up to make sure this was observed?
It took Professor Jonathan Moyo two short months to blow the lid on the nonsense, starting off at the ZBC. Why and indeed where are the other Ministers where the rot is far much worse than that obtaining at the Information Ministry? We have boards being fired elsewhere but that is running away from the issue staring us in the face..
Firing of board members (who are going to spring up elsewhere) is one thing but the real rot is with the executives in these parastatals. Mr. Misheck Sibanda who is said to be making schedule of these mad ‘robber’ salaries is taking his own sweet time. Mr. Sibanda is the chief cabinet secretary so the buck stops with him, what can be done to speed this effort up?
Is it by some freak accident that Cuthbert Dube embroiled in his own salary scandal was also the chairman at ZBC or this is a private club where these parastatals bosses have dedicated themselves to extract the maximum damage to the fiscus and by extension the people of Zimbabwe? Who is protecting these thieves?
The question on most lips appears to be how many of these chiefs of ‘loser’ parastatals are living large with these salaries and what do the line ministers have to say about this?
In the case of the ZBC we know it was Minister Shamu and in the case of the PSMSA it was Minister Madzore. What does this say about their oversight roles as Ministers and what were their permanent secretaries doing from nine to fife in those offices?
The Media for its part appears to be doing half a job here. Last year one known publication revealed the rot at NSSA but there was deafening silence from the two Ministers concerned. I refer here to Biti for Finance and Mpariwa for Labour who totally ignored the import of this report. For Biti, it really gets worse as he was the chief custodian of government funds.
NSSA touches on the Finance Ministry in that it is a member of IPEC which falls under aegis of the Finance Ministry. IPEC itself has proved beyond all doubt reasonable it is just a useless club which has failed to stem the rot dished out to pensioners and the insured by an extractive pension and insurance industry which puts the benefits and salaries of their management ahead of everybody and everything else.
IPEC is content to support the lie that inflation gobbled all the funds when we know most of the funds were invested in real estate with some former insurance executives claiming to own the buildings which were bought with pensioner’s funds.
Most parastatals are not as badly off financially as currently envisaged. If those pretending to lead them are allowed to continue on the ‘Dube mould’ then there will be nothing left in them a few short weeks down the line.
Why does the media not use its skills to get the schedules of who was paid what where and when. This information is available. The flimsy defence used by thieves that if when asked to account they will leave resulting in a brain drain is the worst form of criminal blackmail known to man. The other piece of twaddle couched in crafty cowboy legalese is that salaries are confidential. What nonsense is this?
If the salary of the president and his cabinet are known why should these fellows’ salaries be the big unknown when they are robbing everyone blind? If this brain drain means arresting this wanton thievery then I think we should move with speed and fire these thieves before they do more damage. This ‘brain drain’ might be the best thing that ever happened to us!
My view is the media should get a schedule telling their readers who is getting what where fast while there is still momentum otherwise this will evaporate like the funds these guys and dolls misappropriated in the first place. This piecemeal approach becomes nonsense in the face of such a mess!
Once known those who overpaid themselves should be made to pay back every red cent they ‘stole’ in the guise of salaries. There just might be enough there to build a few schools in the new resettlement areas.
It’s sickening! In the interest of transparency every chief of a parastatal should have his/her salary and benefits made public since Muchechetere and Dube’s are already known. This is what being fair means, yes?
