Tendai Ruben Mbofana
The recent attempt by Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) spokesperson Kindness Paradza to dismiss the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index (CPI) as a biased instrument of foreign agendas is a masterclass in state-sponsored gaslighting.
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It is a predictable script used by failing administrations everywhere when the mirror of international scrutiny reflects a reality too hideous to acknowledge.
For a nation where corruption is not just a systemic flaw but the very grease that turns the wheels of the political machine, Paradza’s defense is as flimsy as the “integrity pledges” he so proudly touts.
To understand why Zimbabwe remains at the tail end of global rankings, one need not look at “foreign experts” but at the staggering disconnect between the commission’s administrative “busy work” and the untouched opulence of the politically connected elite.
The most glaring fault in Paradza’s argument lies in the messenger himself.
Paradza is not merely a ZACC commissioner but a known ZANU-PF official.
This dual role creates a terminal conflict of interest that effectively lobotomizes the commission’s independence before a single investigation even begins.
How can a high-ranking member of the ruling party impartially oversee a body tasked with investigating the very individuals who sit across from him at party caucuses?
This political entanglement is precisely why ZACC has earned its reputation for the “catch and release” of “big fish” while focusing its limited energies on the “small fry.”
Catching a traffic officer for a five-dollar bribe is not an anti-corruption strategy; it is a public relations exercise designed to simulate activity while the treasury is being looted through the back door.
Paradza claims the CPI ignores “verifiable progress” and “institutional reforms.”
However, the “progress” he cites consists mostly of signing ceremonies and the establishment of “integrity committees.”
In the real world, progress is measured by convictions and the recovery of stolen billions, not by how many civil servants signed a piece of paper promising not to steal.
While Paradza boasts of seizing 51 million dollars in illicit wealth, this figure is a drop in the ocean compared to the estimated 4 billion dollars lost to corruption every single year.
When the leakage is measured in billions and the recovery in a few millions, the state is not “winning the war”; it is barely managing the optics of its defeat.
The commissioner’s dismissal of the CPI as “non-scientific” further reveals a profound misunderstanding of how corruption works.
Corruption, by its very nature, is a clandestine activity that leaves no public receipt.
Therefore, the “perception” of business leaders, risk analysts, and experts is the most reliable metric available.
If those who wish to invest in Zimbabwe perceive the environment as a minefield of kickbacks and opaque tenders, then that is the economic reality.
You cannot “home-grow” a perception index using ZimStat to tell people they aren’t seeing what they are seeing.
Asking a government to grade its own performance on corruption is like asking a fox to provide a scientific audit of the missing chickens in the coop.
Nowhere is the commission’s impotence more evident than in its handling of the “Zvigananda”—the overnight multi-millionaires whose wealth defies all logic and known business activity.
ZACC has remained curiously silent while individuals with no tangible industry background flaunt private jets, fleets of high-end vehicles, and wads of hard cash.
How does one secure multi-million-dollar public tenders through shelf companies that produce nothing and employ no one?
The commission seems disinterested in the “unexplained wealth” of those who brag about having “captured” the presidency in leaked audio recordings.
Consider the case of Wicknell Chivayo and the R1.1 billion election material scandal.
While South African authorities, including the Hawks, the Financial Intelligence Unit, and SARS, have raised serious red flags regarding money laundering and questionable transfers from Ren-Form CC, ZACC has simply shrugged.
To dismiss such high-level, cross-border financial irregularities as “lacking evidence” while international investigators are ringing the alarm bells is not a failure of methodology; it is a failure of will.
It sends a clear message that if you are sufficiently connected, the law is merely a suggestion.
The same pattern of institutional blindness applies to the Command Agriculture program.
The failure to account for 3 billion dollars disbursed through this initiative—where Sakunda Holdings was accused of receiving unlawful payments and redeeming Treasury Bills at ten times their value—is a wound that continues to bleed the Zimbabwean economy dry.
Yet, ZACC’s investigations into these “big fish” have been non-existent or perpetually stalled.
The same goes for the allegations surrounding Paul Tungwarara, whose companies allegedly received millions up-front for borehole drilling and war veteran housing projects that remain largely incomplete.
When the elite can use public funds as a personal ATM to fund lavish shopping sprees abroad for their families, Paradza’s talk of “integrity pledges” sounds like a cruel joke to the ordinary Zimbabwean.
Furthermore, the “10 percent kickback” culture within the finance ministry, where high-ranking officials reportedly demand a cut of every public tender payment, remains an open secret.
This systemic rot explains why our roads resemble war zones and why our public hospitals are frequently described as “death traps” lacking basic medicine and equipment.
The 4 billion dollars lost annually to this elite-level corruption is the difference between a functional healthcare system and the current reality where thousands of Zimbabweans die needlessly because the money meant for oxygen and bandages was diverted to purchase luxury SUVs for the politically loyal.
Paradza’s proposal to develop a “National Anti-Corruption Dashboard” and a “home-grown perception index” is nothing more than a strategic retreat into data manipulation.
It is an attempt to replace independent international standards with state-sanctioned propaganda.
By choosing to measure “dockets referred” instead of “convictions secured” or “the status of the politically connected,” the state hopes to create a digital facade of accountability.
But no dashboard can hide the fact that the individuals looting the country’s natural resources through offshore networks in Mauritius and the Cayman Islands are the ones protected by the very system Paradza is defending.
The truth is that the CPI is not biased against Zimbabwe; it is accurately reflecting a nation where accountability is a selective tool used for political persecution rather than justice.
As long as ZACC remains a toothless watchdog that only barks at those without political cover, there is no basis for Paradza’s complaints.
The “perpetual negative perception” he bemoans is a direct consequence of the perpetual impunity enjoyed by the ruling class.
Until the “big fish” are not just “caught and released” but are actually prosecuted and their billions returned to the national treasury, Zimbabwe will remain trapped at the bottom of the global rankings.
No amount of administrative “rebranding” or “inter-agency cooperation” can substitute for the courage to investigate the men and women sitting in the highest offices of the land.
Paradza may reject the index, but the citizens of Zimbabwe, who feel the weight of this corruption in every pothole and every empty clinic shelf, know exactly what the true score is.
- Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. To directly receive his articles please join his WhatsApp Channel on: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaqprWCIyPtRnKpkHe08
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