State, parliament, judiciary captured by “toxic cartels”: Nelson Chamisa
By Nyashadzashe Ndoro | Nehanda Politics |
Opposition MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa has claimed that the state has been captured by “toxic cartels” resulting in the “downstream” suffering of ordinary Zimbabwean people.
Chamisa said this while addressing the nation on Tuesday about the party’s agenda for 2021. He added the cartels had corruptly captured the Parliament and Judiciary.
“The fight against Corruption. Corruption is killing us. The people have a right to a corruption-free and uncaptured State. Cartels must fall. The eviction of villagers for commercial cronyism must end. Elite state capture must be dismantled,” he said.
Chamisa added that the level of corruption in the country had reached alarming levels.
“The cancer now permeates the whole body politic, from the rotten pinnacle of the state going down to the lowest ranked employee in government and in the private sector.
“The cancer of corruption has also now assumed another dimension, the dominance of toxic cartels. All key business engagements by the government are now monopolised by a cartel of a few individuals. This menace has milked the country and resulted in the downstream suffering of ordinary people.”
Chamisa added: “The capture of the state also involves the capture of other pillars of the state and agencies including the judiciary and Parliament. They can never be an inclusive and shared growth in an environment where the state is captured by a few. This fight will therefore be focussed on exposing corruption in the country and demanding accountability from all.”
Recently, the Daily Maverick released a comprehensive series of articles exposing a criminal network and the dynamics of the alliance of cartels that have captured the economy of Zimbabwe and robbed about half of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
A 64 page article titled, Zimbabwe: Explosive cartel report uncovers the anatomy of a captured state, suggests among other criminal activities that illicit cross-border financial transactions cost Zimbabwe up to a staggering US$3 billion a year and billions in gold and diamonds smuggled out of the country.
It also noted an estimation that Zimbabwe may lose up to half the value of its annual GDP of US$21.4 billion due to corrupt economic activity that, even if not directly the work of the cartels featured in the report, is the result of their suffocation of honest economic activity through collusion, price fixing and monopolies.
