Corruption: An undeclared pandemic in opposition-run councils

Gibson Nyikadzino Correspondent

When a public or private sector official is arrested for engaging in corruption or related crimes like abuse of office, nepotism or extortion, often times by-standers say: “It is just unfortunate, but this was his time to live pretty”.

People have coined terms to try and justify corrupt activities.

In most jurisdictions, this phrase has become the daily bread that people are frequently consuming to satisfy their desire when defending corruption related activities. The feeling is that, after all, most people are corrupt!

This explains how pervasive corruption is.

It does not only harm institutions and systems, but it also taints the soul.

It desensitises people and corrupts their conscience in that they become unmoved in their failure to distinguish what is right from wrong.

At a collective and individual level, it has often been said that African cultures have a tolerance for corruption, a narrative that needs to be earnestly pushed back.

Corruption is a grave offence that has the potential to impede social and economic advancement in every country and impede attempts to meet the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

At a micro-level, political and administrative governance at councils and municipalities is critical in ensuring that SDGs are achieved to attain economic, social and environmental sustainability for the benefit of rate payers.

However, this has and is not the case at the Harare City Council (HCC).

Post-2000, the opposition has touted itself as an army of “liberals and democrats” who were ready to fashion local governance at a highly pitched level to fight corruption. Western democratisation and liberalisation, within the opposition, are deemed as the answers to addressing local challenges.

At the HCC, the neo-liberal thoughts and strategies of the so-called “democratisation agenda” have made political corruption, that is, the abuse of public authority for personal or sectional gain, a major theme that has entangled many officials into deep governance malpractices.

What this means is that “democrats” were imagining that their democratic trajectory would put rail guards that would stop corruption.

However, since 2000 when the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) became the successive occupant at Town House, they did not realise that democracy and corruption were two phenomena that have a complicated relationship.

But there is also a strong relationship between the two ideas. In the end, the opposition eroded institutional checks and balances at local governance levels by becoming corrupt, hence an experience of democratic deterioration was triggered under their watch. Since then, corruption has flourished at the opposition-run HCC.

At the core of the HCC operations are heart-stopping cases of corruption whose emerging reports are weakening faith in democratic processes of transparency, accountability and effective oversight.

In a democracy, the traditional understanding of the opposition’s function is that it should operate as a political watchdog, scrutinising public officials’ actions and holding them accountable. This unavoidably involves being a critic of the administration.

For over two decades, the opposition councillors and their supporters treated allegations of corruption against HCC authorities as “malicious political narratives to taint the democratic alternative”. It rings true therefore that beneficiaries of corruption always want to defend the status quo.

However, reports emerging from the Commission of Inquiry into the operations of the HCC since 2017 are proving otherwise. Revelations made so far are only the tip of an iceberg.

What it tells is that the electorate since 2000 has been electing incompetent people to run council and entrusting them with upholding governance standards.

Alternatively, it is now a dawning reality that the electorate and ordinary people are realising that those they elected as councillors are prioritising their personal interests and political careers over the welfare of the public.

HCC housing director Mr Addmore Nhekairo recently conceded that the land allocation process at Town House was in a shambles.

He said there has been interference from most of the opposition councillors.

The same councillors are alleged to have illegally parcelled out more than 5 000 plots ahead of last year’s harmonised elections, a practice they had also done in previous elections. Between January and July, the councillors also spent more than US$11 million on workshops and seminars in seven months.

These allegations of corruption have stifled development.

It is however without debate to say that development is necessarily linked with anti-corruption initiatives.

For Harare and other opposition run councils to be developmental in scope and able to attract investment, corruption has and should be fought legally, with political will, to allow a semblance of growth.

With how entrenched corruption has become at the HCC, even those in the opposition have given up on fighting the scourge and address themselves as the “alternative to the democratisation agenda”.

In 2019, the opposition MDC which has continued metamorphosising, established what it termed an Integrity and Accountability Panel (IAP) “tasked with enforcing a zero tolerance against corruption.” The IAP was later disbanded after failing to get oxygen to ventilate its ‘commitment’ to fighting corruption.

Corruption in the any form from bribery, embezzlement or extortion has become an unsettling scourge affecting Harare’s political and socioeconomic landscapes.

It could be said that the people have enabled corrupt elements, groups and harmful interests to infiltrate strategic and key pillars because of unsettling inertia.

Without fear of contradiction, from recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry into the Governance, offenders must be severely punished!

The levels of corruption in local authorities have become a source and cause of poverty, and also a barrier to its eradication.

Also, while corrupt councillors must be severely punished, it is also imperative to understand that eliminating corrupt council members alone would not end the challenge.

There has to be a radical change and transformation of the system the councillors have been riding on to create unequal structures that primarily advanced their interests.

In the battle against corruption, we must confront greed, dishonesty, self-enrichment, and resistance to creative reform.

There are several factors that lead to corruption and if these are disregarded, corruption will not be properly prevented and social problems will persist.

Bribery, nepotism, gross mismanagement of council finances and asset misuse, low-rate sales of municipal assets and bribing of council personnel are examples of corrupt activities that have negatively impacted service delivery. These should be stopped.