By Professor Ken Mufuka
Let me surprise our readers by saying that while your concern about the looting of public companies by board members is justified, these companies are set up to be looted. Here is the surprise.
Though looting is in the same family as corruption, it is not always illegal. Corruption is described as willingness to “act dishonestly in return for money or personal gain generally dishonorable behaviour, unethical or amoral.”
Brother Happison Muchechetere, chief executive of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) has become the face of corruption or looting. He is accused of collecting US$90 000 a year in bonuses alone while collecting a salary of US$40 000 per month. His emolument alone would have constituted about 12,5 percent of the company’s total expenditure for one year.
While he was happily collecting these emoluments 300 workers went without pay for three months or more. The brother obviously lacks a sense of identity; he does not know his proper place in the universe. His sense of balance is out of skelter with common sense.
The proper word for such behaviour is amoral, a loss of right or wrong. But his looting by itself is not illegal. He did not write his own cheque. A board of governors (the proper name for the board of trustees) approved his salary and emoluments and they are men steeped in world affairs.
Only the permanent secretary in the parent ministry, Brother George Charamba, seems to have recovered some sense of balance (or identity as above, and has shown some remorse.)
Now, I will show you that human beings are by nature corrupt, and looting comes naturally to those who find themselves in such positions. JP. Morgan-Chase is the largest financial house in the United States. Its boss is Jamie Dimon. Freshman Senator Elizabeth Warren had this to say about this Dimon.
Despite the stressful times in which all financial houses are going through, Dimon was paid US$200 million in bonuses and last week received another US$13 million in a pay rise. Warren wants to know why “the company boosted Dimon’s pay to reward him despite the company’s engagement in a myriad of illegal activities.”
This company accepted a US$13 billion fine rather than face a long drawn out court case for its illegal activities, which included, according to Warren, “fraudulent mortgages backed securities, its illegal foreclosure practices, like robo-signing and its manipulation of energy markets in California.” This company sold mortgages on the world market which were not backed by value in the buildings which should have securitised them.
Now, if I had pretended to sell only one house which did not exist, you would be visiting me in a federal jailhouse. Dimon is not in jail. In fact, he is much in demand as an expert witness in senate hearings and by the White House policymakers.
The point I am making here is that Warren is a freshman senator. She is still green and has not yet enjoyed the perks of power. That is why she is causing so many problems. JP. Morgan Chase itself got broke, and was rescued by the US treasury. Dimon shows no sense of remorse whatever.
We must now return to Muchechetere. While Muchechetere acted in the full knowledge of the board of governors at ZBC, he cannot be faulted if he collected what was given to him. The question is who decided what was given to him and why? Somewhere along the line, the board becomes corrupt, and they devise a pay scale to reward themselves for no work. All those board members at ZBC had other jobs to do.
Up to this point the brother is not guilty of anything. The more experienced members concoct a plan and new members are asked to sign their names to it. The new members are grateful at their good fortune. By the time they discover that they are looting the ZBC, they are deep into it.
However, our experience in the US is not to waste time with trying to prove that which cannot be proven. They were the lawful governors of ZBC and they paid themselves whatever they deemed fit and wise.
Here is the juicy part. If these brothers are crooked, as I suspect that they are, they probably forgot to report their loot to the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority. In the US, a news correspondent can go to the internal Revenue Services and ask for Jamie Dimon’s tax return for 2013.
There is also another way of looking at it. If they did not report their income, an offence has been committed, punishable by jail time. These brothers could also have communicated some of their business through letter writing. That is a very serious offence, using the US post office in order to commit, abate or to further the crime of hiding one’s income. Brothers and sisters, if you love your country, follow my advice. You will be well rewarded.
Professor Ken Mufuka can be reached on [email protected]. This article first appeared in the Financial Gazette
