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There is absolutely no doubt now, there are criminals around President Mnangagwa.
Talk of Delish Nguwaya, Obadiah Moyo or the recently arrested Henrietta Rushwaya, to name just a few, and it becomes apparent that Zimbabwe’s top echelons of power are infested with criminals who are not ashamed of putting their own selfish comforts and wellbeing ahead of the country’s interests.
The aforementioned cases are by no chance exhaustive, they have been chosen simply for their high-profile nature. In some quarters, it is believed that journalist Hopewell Chin’ono ended up spending more than 40 days behind bars for exposing corruption involving those who wield enough power to effect such.
Surely, how does one explain the arrogance by Rushwaya to carry 6kgs of gold through an airport? Is the public supposed to believe that she was merely taking a chance, that no one within the structures of the airport security knew anything about this criminality? How many times had she gone through the airport with precious minerals before yesterday? Did she offend someone and then got punished? Could this be simply a factional war? Is she a pawn in a grand power matrix? Or is she purely a habitual criminal that got caught?
For those not in the know, Rushwaya was arrested yesterday at the RGM International Airport and she is set to appear in court today. Nhau delivers on-the-minute court proceedings directly to your phone or any other gadget via WhatsApp. For those in our Nhau groups, you will receive a comprehensive round-up of the court proceedings at the end of the every appearance.
The controversial ex-Zifa boss is quite a colourful character, who has bulldozed her way through football, Pentecostal churches, politics and business, where she recently took over, mafia-style, the organisation that represents small-scale miners in Zimbabwe.
On October 11, Rushwaya’s organisation, the Zimbabwe Miners Federation signed what the Herald called “strategic partnerships” with a company bearing the name of a video game character, Ali Japan786, with Winston Chitando, the Mines and Mining Development Minister in attendance.
How does one even begin to explain the relationship between Rushwaya’s Zimbabwe Miners Federation, Ali Japan786 and the Mines and Mining Development Ministry?
Because, when confronted by detectives after being caught red-handed, Rushwaya immediately threw Ali under the bus. The same Ali whose company signed multi-million dollar deals with Rushwaya and ZMF in the presence of Chitando.
Sanctioned gold leakages?
Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube, Home Affairs Minister Kazembe Kazembe, Economist Eddie Cross and many others, have all revealed that Zimbabwe is losing billions worth of gold through smuggling annually.
The question is; what will the “tip-of-the-iceberg” arrest of Rushwaya actually reveal? Are authorities going to dig deep enough to expose the whole rotten system or this is yet another catch and release exercise?
Can the general populace believe that these efforts to plug leaks of the precious mineral are real when it appears that those at the helm of the industry are the ones spearheading its smuggling?
Gold is one of Zimbabwe’s top foreign currency earners, with the precious metal fetching over US$1,6 billion in 2018. Small-scale miners and artisanal miners (illegal gold panners included) provided 21,7 tonnes of the record-breaking 33,2 tonnes of gold that were produced in Zimbabwe in 2018.
That makes them an important economic player and a vital cog in Chitando’s plans, particularly the US$12 billion mining industry blueprint. Gold is expected to be the biggest contributor to this lofty goal – chipping in with a whopping US$4 billion.
But at the rate at which the gold is being smuggled, are these goals even achievable? In January this year, Fidelity Printers, the country’s sole buyer of gold and silver, revealed that gold deliveries fell by more than 6 tonnes from a high of 33,2 tonnes in 2018 to 27 tonnes in 2019.
There is no doubt the 2020 figures could even be grimmer – deliveries have been declining with half-year figures expected to be even more depressing.
No prices for guessing where the gold going – it is obviously now being sold on the black market, which saw gold deliveries plummeting by 30 percent to 12,3 tonnes in the first six months of 2019 – a far cry from the 17, 3 tonnes realised in the corresponding period in 2018.
This massive drop gives credence to alleged reports of connivance between mine owners, Fidelity Printers officials and the Zimbabwe Republic Police teams on the ground, who are said to be understating the amount of gold that a miner would have retrieved.
Is it safe then to conclude that corruption in Zimbabwe has been institutionalised? That these leakages are sanctioned and known? That this may simply be a ZANU PF factional war or perhaps a turf war in the lucrative gold mining industry rather than good policing by Zimbabwe’s security services?
Conspiracy
Could this be factional? A tit-for-tat scenario where one bigwig declares “you eat my kids, I eat yours too”?
Remember the Deputy Minister of Health and Child Care is in trouble for interfering with a tendering process. That case has been quickly linked to factionalism with those believed to be in his faction coming out guns blazing in his defence.
In the same vein, a lot of people out there have been quick to link Rushwaya to Chitando and to President Mnangagwa.
Assuming these are truly Mnangagwa’s people, the Nguwayas, Rushwayas and Obadiah Moyos – does he not have the power to protect them? Or he plays his cards close to his chest, making it look like legit arrests before rewarding them off picture?
Or perhaps Mnangagwa is an honest man who leads a straightforward life, and people simply use his name for their own gain while others attempt to soil it?
Take this comment by government spokesperson Nick Mangwana, for instance: “President @edmnangagwa spent the whole of last week warning those in high positions and those close to power to desist from wayward ways. This warning is ignored at one’s own peril. The system is primed to cleanse Zimbabwe of organised crime syndicates for the good of the nation.”
Besides this “small change” bust involving Rushwaya, there are many other cases, including some that are deemed to be mere persecutions simply because one belongs to a rival faction within ZANU PF.
According to State security insiders, it is a murky world where politics, business and the underworld meet.
Which begs another question; has Zimbabwe become a haven for foreigners of a criminal disposition? How many Rushwayas are out there doing the bidding for foreign criminals and bigwigs in Government?
Will Rushwaya, just like Prisca Mupfumira, Nguwaya or Obadiah Moyo go through a few remand hearings before the matter dies a natural death? Nhau/Indaba
