Re: Corruption and Technocratism
I request that the problem of corruption be dealt with decisively by means of legislation that shines the light on logistics management (value chain management) in all transitions in both government and the private sector.
What we all know
The Procurement Department of Government has been called the ‘sin city’ by our minister of finance. The power cuts are the result of corruption in the tendering process: the corrupt won the tenders to generate electricity despite glaringly lacking capacity. Buyers in every local/government departments have inflated prices to an extent the devil is ashamed of them. Imagine a single ordinary ball point pen is claimed to have cost $US1000! Yes our country is under sanctions but sanctions are the least of our worries. The portion of the country’s GDP that is siphoned out through corruption runs into billions.
Buyers in the private sector have cost their employers. It is the same modus operandi: over pricing for a kick back. The employer does not get the best product or service at the best price and the public suffers as products are offered at higher prices.
Our enemies are right about us
The truth is humbling; potentially embarrassing. We are known world over for living in a horrible dictatorship of Mugabe and our elections are rubbished but both you CDE Chinos and I agree that our elections were credible and that we do not live in a dictatorship. BUT and a big BUT! Our enemies are truthful when they put us in the top 10 of the worst corrupt countries in the world. We cherish our sovereignty which was built on the values of the liberation struggle (VLS). Corruption is an arch enemy of VLS. How did we become this bad? The imposition of economic sanctions against Cuba and Iran did not breed corruption in these countries.  Our Leadership?
Wilful blindness and rhetoric
I listen to the speeches of CDE Mugabe.  I remember him saying, ‘If there is evidence of corruption, we prosecute’. I have wondered, given the rampant corruption, how CDE President fails to see what everyone else sees.  Factor in Kereke who has the evidence but no action is being taken! There is a risk CDE President could be viewed as wilfully blind to corruption, which indeed is the worst form of corruption.Advertisement

I like to trust the President means well. Lately our two Vice Presidents have spoken strongly against corruption but they remind me of Mai Mujuru; she was a speechfier and nothing more than that! ‘Vanhu tinofanira kuchishandisa irrigation equipmemt torima gore rese, kwete kungomirira yekunaya mvura’, she would say. I would wait for it! It never came! No spelling out the exact policies and programmes she had designed to help the poor villager acquire irrigation equipment. Sad. Surely you would agree with me CDE Chinos, that we can’t be just speechfiers. Speeches must fire.
Purchasing and Supplying Act: creating default traceability’s
An Act of the law would require that costs of every purchase to be known by the buyer and interested public. The seller must provide information on the source and cost the product and the profit mark-up (value added). OK Supermarket and all supermarkets must not just put a selling price but a cost price on each single egg if they are selling single eggs. On the internet, OK supermarket must show us the value chain; that is names of supplier/s of the eggs, the supplier’s costs and selling price. The suppliers in turn do the same and so on.
That’s a supply chain traceability. An egg producer whose offer was rejected by the buyer, can check the trail, and can approach OK Supermarket CEO or shareholders and say ‘Look your buyer is either corrupt or incompetent; I offered better eggs and at a better price’. With the one bullet of traceability’s we brutally attack corruption, incompetence and create the most transparent supply chain in the world!
Some will say this is just difficult! I say black men, reduce the number of things you consider impossible or too difficult. Laziness and a lack of a can-do-attitude mothers corruption and a shameless dependency syndrome. Creating a webpage and loading up your pricing is simple. Government can create templates for people which can be loaded from mobile forms. It’s that easy.
I note that ZIMASSET is weak on E-Commerce but the situation as it is, is such that these traceabilities are implementable for the benefit of about 80 % of urbanites, all established businesses, and 80 % of vendors or any informal business unit/person in the cities. Some kind of Operation Kubudirana Pachena for effective supply value chain management. Imports must be banned if they do not comply with the traceability regime. Those who give false information must face criminal charges.
Traceability in Government and Parastatals
This is where traceabilities are desperately needed and urgently so. The public must have an automatically enabled right to ALL information on tenders and anything procured or sold.  Directors and companies of entities that won or lost tenders or supply opportunities must be reviewed and also every detail of the offers. The suppliers must have a cost traceability too. Including the purchase of a single pen! The information must be online too, so the public can look out for corruption and nepotism. The government must be the role model for honest and competent purchasing and selling.
There is no security risk connected to publishing where Chihuri or Chiwenga buy their ball point pens or police/army clothing gear, ordinary vehicles, all police vehicles, police weapons, all bullets. These must be subjected to the traceabilities regime. Only equipment and services that are purely security sensitive can be exempt. The office of the Auditor General (AG) is extremely legally limited on its ability to counter corruption. It takes an AG with an activist approach to expose corruption and incompetence. Even then, there is very little the AG can do that is decisive; corruption has become worse, right in the face of the AG.
Traceability will eliminate corruption associated with purchasing and supplying transactions. There are many, many, and many obvious and clear ways of eliminating corruption in non-purchasing and supply transactions. The right values and a can-do attitude are key.
Walmart and value chain management
CDE Chinos, you might not know Walmart because you have never been to the USA or the West. But if you visit the white people’s land, no one will laugh at your English or judge your intelligence by the fluency of your English. It’s just mabhoyi asina kukwana wanofunge kuti kuite speak English, ndokurekete kuti munhu ari wise. So you would love the USA, CDE Chinos. Walmart and other businesses beat their competition because of their value chain management. Value chain management is a source of competitive advantage.
In our country corruption and profiteering has made our value chain dangerously inefficient. People are dying in hospitals for lack of medicine; a shortage caused by the buyers- corruption. Yes, Walmart is a company (and it has a budget way bigger than Zimbabwe’s, can you believe it!) but practise in value chain management can be adopted by governments. And if we also require the private sector to abide by traceabilities, we would be the one country in the world with the most efficient supply chain system and that can only mean, we will get richer on account of our good management technocratism. Imagine, market research will be so freaking easy. A hallelujah to all the start-ups.
The next political wars
CDE Chinos, I write to you mindful of the forthcoming elections and it would be nice to campaign for re-election on the basis we moved Zimbabwe from the worst corrupt to the least corrupt countries in the world. This is doable! Easy job. Our domestic opponents’ platform is the open palm for transparency and every normal person loves transparency. I do; you do!
But our opponents have no clue exactly how to create a transparent state.  Zimbabwe knows from the GNU days, that our opponents became the biggest thieves of all times. But still some people think our opponents might make a transparent government. It’s silly of them but that’s the reality. We must ‘brutalise’ that thinking. Torima wanhu!
And the way to do so is by practically advancing the rhetoric of our opponents though legislating for Traceabilities. That is how we ‘farm people’ in our civilisation. We criminalise individuals and organisations that breach the law of Purchasing and Supplying. If we don’t take these legal steps people will think the president’s request for evidence is calculated and wilful denial of corruption.
We need to ensure the legacy for our dear CDE President and Commander of Chief, the One Centre of Power, Lion of Africa – CDE Mugabe! I think his legacy might now hang on how he stops corruption. You see CDE Chinos, a hero is one who fights to the end, and this is according our very CDE President Mugabe from his comments on refusing to bury a liberation war CDE who went on to become the president of our main domestic political opponents.
By the same sword, our President might not be candidate for the Heroes acre. This is because the perception that he natured corruption is strong and is it an intelligent perception and also a valid one. His failure to eliminate it, is fairly and rightly fatal to his legacy. We should not put future Zanu PF leaders in the situation where they have to exhume CDE Mugabe from the heroes acre and bury dump his bones in Zvimba. You see CDE Chinos, it would be impossible to destroy the culture of corruption when we have a strongly-perceived symbol of it at an important national shrine.
Lucky for you CDE Chinos, one of the vice presidents is a lawyer and an economist; he will quickly appreciate that it takes well calculated legal instruments to change this evil culture of corruption. Hopefully the vice-president will not become a speechfier but speech-firer that actually burns.
As I sign off CDE Chinos, I would remind you once again how bad corruption has become. CDE Chinos, almost 100 percent of police recruits in the last 5 or so years brided their way into ZRP. Cash bribes or nepotism. And connect that tragedy to the insistence by Chihuri to fine drivers for lack of car stereo-radio licences and for car cleanliness that has no bearing on road or driving safety. And Chihuri’s rather calculated refusal to use the media to aggressively educate people on their rights in relation to traffic offenses.
Chihuri knows it’s illegal and a clear abuse of the law to detain any one for about 5 minutes where the person is cooperating (kwete corporation yekubvuma bribing) to process a transport regulation infringement or ‘drag’ such a person to the Police Station for ‘processing’; all antics used to pressure drivers for a bride. Surely, you can see why people see CDE President’s failure to stop this rot as wilful blindness and why he is, therefore, unfit for the Heroes Acre.
This is the worst menacing national disaster facing the country; forget AIDS, forget draughts; corruption is.
I thank you in advance for taking this matter to Parliament on my behalf and for the people of our constituency, your constituency.
Yours sincerely
Chiedza Makandaora Marange: Zanu PF voter and native of Buhera Constituency. Pamberi neZimbabwe, Pamberi ne VLS.