By Dr Sikhanyiso Duke Ndlovu
A lot has been said and written about corruption and in some cases out of context. According to the Oxford Dictionary, corruption means ‘dishonest’ accepting bribes, immoral wicked to cause to accept bribes.’ Corruption is the act or activities of the corrupt deeds.
The newspapers are right to expose anomalies in private companies and in certain government institutions and parastatals but that is not a final basis for prosecution. What should follow are the proper police investigations in terms of the Law of Procedure and Codification Act in the statutes on the basis of which to prosecute. Corruption has a two way stream. There is the briber and the bribed as the Oxford Dictionary states that corruption also means to cause to accept bribes.
Each nation has laws which define corruption or criminalises certain acts as corruption and punishable by its laws. For example, Americans call paying legislators in congress and senate to influence their decision ‘lobby.’ The lobbyists have huge amounts of money for the job and that is acceptable to the Americans.
In Nigeria, they call it Desh. When travelling at the boarder they say there are missing leafs in the passport. If you don’t put the missing leafs, meaning bank notes, then your passport will not be processed and you will be left by the plane.
Dishonest and greed to take what one is not entitled to and which become prejudicial to the state, to the company or corporation is corruption. The state and state corporations or organs and companies should have guiding principles governing gifts, presents and allowances beyond which would amount to corruption.
For example, a certain Minister from a certain neighbouring country who was Guest Speaker at an educational conference when given a present as a token of appreciation insisted to know the value of the gift before he could accept it, because his country did not permit its official to accept gifts beyond a certain price.
The question remains with us – Do we have such guidelines? Do we have a leadership code? Do public officers declare their assets? If we do not have guidelines on financial remunerations and on what constitutes a bribe or corruption then on what basis do we judge a person to be corrupt? In professional evaluation and work ethics, there is what we call countenance of evaluation which provides antecendence which is the historical, and objectives which are outcome based.
The anticedents specify what ought to be in the company, parastatal or government. There must be standards to measure what is and what ought to be. The discrepancy between ‘What Is’ and ‘What Ought’ is the missing link. If the salary of the Chief Executive is beyond what ought to be, then questions must be asked. If the allowances received are beyond what they ought to be; again questions may be asked as to why.
More questions may be asked as to who is responsible for the salary awards. If the organisation has a Ministry, and Board which implements the decisions on salaries and allowances according to the provided guidelines, that Ministry and its Board must answer the questions instead of hammering the recipient who accepts the salary or allowances awarded to him or her. For us to say the salaries are exorbitant we should be comparing them with the guidelines of what they ought to be. The Board awarding those salaries and allowances cannot be left out of the blame.
Corruption is a mental disease driven by greed. It is an acquired ethical deficiency syndrome – such people have suffered deprivation at their early ages according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Persons who have suffered economic thirst and love deprivation when they grow up and find themselves in control of wealth which is not theirs, the mental disease of wanting to possess that which is not theirs creeps in.
Here in Zimbabwe, we were deprived during colonialism and some people used to use the disguise that Whites stole our land and property and therefore grabbed what was not theirs under the guise that those were ‘our things stolen from us or used against us to make us remain poor.’
They used to say ‘tino tora chete ndezvedu’ ‘siyathatha kuphela ngokwethu.’ Now that we are free, instead of becoming the true custodians of the wealth and resources on behalf of the people, they become misers and kleptomaniacs.
The President has spoken strongly against corruption, it is therefore the duty of all of us to work hard to identify and remove corruption. We have before us the most important national economic blue-print, the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (ZIMASSET) and if corruption is not stopped, it can erode the policy’s implementation.
Dr Sikhanyiso Ndlovu
Is a Zanu PF National Secretary for Education in the Politburo
Possesses: Dip. Social Work, BA. Socialogy, Masters in Public Admin, Doctor of Education.
He has more than 30 publications and books to his name
Founder Chief Executive of ZDECO Group of Colleges
Former Deputy Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education
Former Minister of Information and Publicity.
