Farai Mabeza
MDC Alliance president Nelson Chamisa has said Prosecutor General Kumbirai Hodzi’s admission that critical law enforcement institutions were under control of cartels was a call for action.
Addressing a Political Actors Dialogue meeting in Bulawayo on Monday, Rwodzi said cartels had captured key government institutions including the police and judiciary making it difficult to tackle graft or bring them to book.
“The nature of the cartels cuts across all the institutions, media, legal profession, judiciary, National Prosecuting Authority and all other institution that are mandated to fight corruption, even members of the public and business people, are also involved in these cartels,” he said.
The POLAD economic thematic committee was meeting for a capacity-building workshop.
In a Twitter thread, Chamisa said Hodzi’s remarks showed that the Prosecutor General was not getting the support he needs from those above him to effectively carry out his mandate.
“The PG confirms the serious and systemic nature of rot permeating the State. As ever, the fish rots from the head. If the top prosecutor is moved to make such public complaints then he is not getting support from the political leadership to perform his constitutional role.
“It is a call to action when the country’s Prosecutor General confirms that cartels have captured state institutions.
“This reflects a captured and compromised state and that the regime is not fit for purpose. Politics aside, we must now unite in this BIG fight against corruption,” Chamisa said.
Rwodzi’s remarks followed a recent press conference by the now fired Zanu-PF youth league leaders Godfrey Tsenengamu and Lewis Matutu at which they said the state was under capture of corrupt businesspeople.
Chamisa rubbished government’s anti-corruption crusade as mere rhetoric.
“The anti-corruption rhetoric is a mere facade designed to hoodwink Zimbabweans and the world. Over the past two years, the level of corruption & state capture has escalated to obscene levels. There cannot be sustainable prosperity when national wealth is in the hands of a few,” Chamisa said.
Tsenengamu, the former Zanu-PF youth league national commissar and Matutu, former deputy national secretary for youth affairs, shocked the party leadership with their press conference leading to highly explosive politburo meeting a couple of days later.
The politburo meeting resolved to suspend the duo from holding party positions for a year while it also cost national secretary for youth affairs, Pupurai Togarepi, his position.
The two youth leaders were also ordered to attend the Chitepo School of Ideology, directive Tsenengamu snubbed.
Matutu has not yet responded to the developments while Tsenengamu has actively engaged the media over the debacle.
Tsenengamu also charged that both Zanu-PF and MDC-A were fraught with corruption.
