Anticorruption 2015

Political Economy of Corruption and the Battle for Accountability in Zimbabwe 2000-2015
2015
Annual State of Corruption
Mutondoro. F, Ncube M.S, Chitambara.P, Sachikonye.L, Bhatasara.S
Edited by Mungai N Lenneiye
01 Acknowledgements
The 2015 Annual State of Corruption Report: Political Economy of Corruption and the Battle for
Accountability in Zimbabwe 2000-2015 was made possible due to the support of the Swedish Embassy
and the European Union.
We also wish to thank our contributors Dr Mungai Lenneiye, Professor Lloyd Sachikonye, Dr. Sandra
Bhatasara and Dr. Prosper Chitambara for their comprehensive input into this report. This Report would
not have been possible without the support and assistance of the entire staff at the TI Zimbabwe
secretariat.
In addition we also thank Dr Ndlela, Dr Chiweshe, Dr Matyszak and Mfundo Mlilo for providing expert
review comments to the chapters and proposed policy recommendations.
TI Z appreciates and acknowledges all the authors cited in this report. We are particularly grateful to David
Mungoshi for his indispensable copy editing input and Sean Ukomba for the Book Design.
Published by Transparency International Zimbabwe

ISBN 978-0-7974-7366-9
First published 2016
Copy editing by David Mungoshi
Book Concept by Sean Ukomba
Printed by PrintWorks Zimbabwe
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any
means, without prior permission from the publishers
2015 Annual State of Corruption

02 Table of contents
page
01 Acronyms
02 Foreword
03 Executive Summary
06 Chapter 1: An Overview
18 Chapter 2: Evidence on the Economic Costs of Corruption in Zimbabwe
36 Chapter 3: Corruption and the Political Landscape in Zimbabwe
56 Chapter 4: Understanding Corruption in Social Service Delivery in
Zimbabwe
70 Bibliography
2015 Annual State of Corruption

03 Acronyms
ADB African Development Bank
AEI Automatic Exchange of Tax Information
ASCR Annual State of Corruption Reports
ASPEF Agricultural Sector Productivity Enhancement Facility
AUCPCC African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption
BACOSSI Basic Commodities Supply-Side Intervention Facility
CAG Comptroller and Auditor General
CHRA Combined Harare Residents Association
CPI Corruption Perception Index
CPIB Corrupt Practices Investigations Bureau
DA District Administrator
DCEC Directorate of Corruption and Economic Crime
EITI Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative
FDI Foreign Direct Investment
FPR Fidelity Printers and Re ners
GDP Gross Domestic Product
GIS Geographical Information System
GNU Government of National Unity
HDI Human Development Index
HMWU Urban Planning Services and Harare Municipal Workers Union
ICAC Independent Commission Against Corruption
IMF International Monetary Fund
IPC Integrity Perception Index
JOMIC Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee
MDC Movement for Democratic Change
MSA Municipal Sales Agreement
NCCG National Code on Corporate Governance of Zimbabwe
NEDLAC National Economic Development and Labour Council
NFA National Framework Agreement
OECD Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
PDI Private Domestic Investment
PLARP Parastatals and Local Authorities Reorientation Programme
PPADB Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Board
RBZ Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
RDCs Rural District Councils
SADC Southern African Development Community
TI Transparency International
TI Z Transparency International Zimbabwe
UN United Nations
UNECA United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
USD United States Dollars
WB World Bank
WDI World Bank's World Development Indicators
WEF World Economic Forum
ZAAC Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission
ZANU- PF Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front
ZBC Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation
ZEC Zimbabwe Electoral Commission
ZIMRA Zimbabwe Revenue Authority
2015 Annual State of Corruption 1
04 Foreword “The real voyage of discovery does not consist in

seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
Marcel Proust, A la Recherche du temps perdu
Present day Zimbabwe remains trapped in a development impasse which judging by this Report by
Transparency International Zimbabwe and other research publications is highly attributable to the growing
problem of corruption than any other variable. Clearly corruption in Zimbabwe is a topical developmental,
political and economic governance issue because of its interrelatedness and inter-linkages with key challenges
that the country continues to face. The challenges that include unemployment, poverty, poor social service
delivery, capital flight, de-industrialization and low investment rates can be blamed on the collapse in
economic governance that is correlated with the escalation in corruption. In developmental terms, this means
that a reduction of corruption in Zimbabwe should translate to improved ease of doing business, increased
investment opportunities and economic growth leading to a reduction in unemployment among many other
developmental indicators.
Contrary to bringing out 'new landscapes' on the subject of corruption, the Publication looks into the subject
with 'new eyes' – a pro-active role of the citizenry through the media and non-state actors transmitting
messages and information into the public domain so that power and corruption become contested space
between the state and citizens' actors. That way citizens can assert their space and hence build a social
contract with the state through engendering accountability on economic governance. The reader is
converted to look at corruption at a new level where it has evolved into network corruption 'which involves
highly connected politicians and elites plundering national resources because of their status and class' as one
of the ingredients of state capture. This publication by TI Z is a mind provoking study which serves the purpose
to encourage a serious relook and rethink of the present day political and governance system.
Due to corruption Zimbabwe has scored and continues to score very badly on key governance and human
development measures such as the Ease of Doing Business, Human Development Index, inter alia. The
growing problem of corruption seems to confront politicians, policy makers, academics, civil society, think
tanks and above all citizens with the question; “How can we move from this dire situation and be a better
economically competitive and development-oriented country like our peers and neighbours such as South
Africa, Botswana, Mauritius and Namibia?”. From the cost of corruption perspective the scourge signals a
downward shift in resources and revenue from the legally intended and enshrined public and state coffers to
individual pockets at the detriment of the poor. As shown in this publication, the nation is viciously confronted
by poverty faces such as unemployment, homelessness, hunger, sick and inability to access health services.
The manifestation of corruption in our state machinery has shaped our present day political economy and in
the ultimate inevitably eroded the role and integrity of the state.
This has to a great extent eroded fiscal capacity which has manifested itself through an accelerated shrinkage
of developmental opportunities, erosion of public goods /service delivery capacity. The field of social service
delivery being a twilight showing the delivery of social contract promised political goods (such as education,
housing, health facilities) has been hard hit by corruption and the result has been zero delivery of such political
goods. Unemployment level continues to increase while the economy collapses on the shoulders on the
informal sector as the industrial infrastructure diminishes in potency and capacity. This publication therefore, is
a reminder to all progressive elements of this dying society and institutions that the remedy to most of our
challenges lies in undoing corruption which has housed itself in our political, bureaucratic and private sector
pinnacles as well as the day to day citizen, state and business transactions.
Daniel. B Ndlela
2 2015 Annual State of Corruption

05 Executive Summary
The 2015 Zimbabwe Annual State of Corruption Report (ASCR) set out to understand “the cost of
corruption on the economy, politics and social service delivery in Zimbabwe 2000-2015”. The underlying
approach assumes that a presentation of empirical evidence on corruption can lead to increased
awareness of its dimensions, and that would, in turn, lead to change of behaviour by individuals – to
either tackle the problem or join in its perpetuation, depending on the cost of either actions. The
evidence presented in the three case studies paints a mixed picture of the last fteen years, one where
citizens have resisted corruption, but also one in which there are instances where they have enjoyed the
bene ts that come with corruption. In this regard, the balance sheet is a product that starts the process of
providing a deep dive into the roots and origins of corruption in Zimbabwe. In that respect, ASCR 2015
has outlined an agenda for future studies that has a potential to equip Zimbabwean society with tools to
better understand the underlying drivers of corruption beyond its manifestations as projected in the
popular media.
The three position papers presented here provide a good understanding of post-colonial foundations of
corruption, while recognizing that Zimbabwe is no more corrupt than other African countries. The papers
provide an argument for students of corruption to expand their horizons and seek to better understand its
historical contexts. Lloyd Sachikonye sketches out how political decisions have had economic
consequences; and Prosper Chitambara ably shows what these consequences have meant for service
delivery – itself well-dissected by Sandra Bhatasara who takes a close look at the Local Government sector.
The result is a body of knowledge that points to the critical role the state and its institutions play in
creating the conditions for corrupt practices, and nurturing them while at the same time protecting the
perpetrators. The papers also present emerging evidence that increasingly, citizens are paying the price of
corruption, be it in the new politics, the economy, or in the social service delivery frameworks.
The political decision in the 1990s to wage a war in the DRC and the unplanned pensions and allowance
pay-outs for war veterans set the stage for the land invasions of 2000. The political governance patterns
that Zimbabwe entered the new Millennium with had far-reaching economic consequences: framed by
hyperin ation, deindustrialization, and informalization driven by rising levels of unemployment. The
resulting economic decline and depressed performance deprived the state of the revenue needed to
maintain the kind of service delivery level that the country had experienced during the rst fteen years
after independence in 1980. As urban residents shifted their political support from the party of liberation
to new opposition parties, political leadership shifted in urban local authorities to these parties; and
central government shifted its attention to rural service delivery. The resulting tension between ZANU-PF
central administration and MDC local government management is shown to be at the heart of declining
economic performance and service delivery, with corrupt practices taking on the semblance of legitimate
tools of political contestation between an elite leadership seeking to exert political, economic, and
delivery hegemony in various spheres of national life.
The three papers paint a picture of extensive institutional decay, collapse, and capture by different groups
in the state – in turn sucking in parts of the private sector into corrupt practices that transfer public
resources from services for the general population to channels that support personal consumption by
those with access to state power – be it central or local. With Central Government revenues
predominantly going to meeting the wage costs of its employees (less than 5% of the population), intense
competition has developed between groups within the state trying to control the remaining small (often
less than 15% of central government revenue) quantum meant to meet the needs of over 90% of the
population.

Executive Summary
Continued...
The papers demonstrate that perpetrators of corruption also wield political power, act with impunity,
operate in small political groups (factions), and lack the political will to end corruption. In return, citizens
rationally calculate the cost of confronting well-connected and powerful corrupt groups and adopt the
view that corrupt practices are the price of securing services for individuals and their family in the market.
The commercialization of corruption has become a means for securing more resources for the state from
an increasingly impoverished population that considers the Police, the City Council, the Vehicle Inspection
Department, and Education as the most corrupt institutions in Zimbabwe: these are the institutions
citizens frequently come into contact with when seeking services, and where individual state agents
collect revenue on their own behalf. Service delivery has become the face of corruption that is visible to
most of the population. On the other hand, the Judiciary is considered least corrupt, followed by Registry
and Permits (consistent with an economy where economic liberalization after 2009 reduced the number
of such instruments in the regulation of economic activities). Citizen trust in state institutions described
in the pre-2000 period has given way to cynicism in the post-hyperin ation and economic liberalization
period (post-2000). Accordingly, petty corruption has become accepted as the “cost of doing business”
and corrupt practices are now “the new normal” as citizens seek a new equilibrium in their dealings with
state institutions. In this respect, citizens were seen as making a choice between paying bribes to get
services or to avoid the cost of contravening regulations and laws enforced by agents of the state.
The three papers also explore the roles of governance and patronage in fostering corruption under
conditions of limited political will to tackle the problem. The conclusion that corruption denies citizens
access to services led to arguments about the role media and non-state actors could play in putting
information on state actions onto the public space so that power and corruption become contested space
between state and citizen actors. Improved measures of state performance were identi ed as possible
tools for showing what could be done to stop the state from “turning on its citizens”. With regard to the
interaction between politics, economics, and service delivery in tackling corruption, the roles of policy-
making and institution-development were identi ed as critical. Changes in politics were seen as drivers of
economic change, which in turn were identi ed as changing the parameters of as well as the means for
service delivery.
The cultural dimensions of corruption are both country and society-speci c. In the case of Zimbabwe,
corruption cannot be understood by just looking at the post-2000 or even post-1980 periods; it needs to
go further into the foundations laid by a colonial administration interacting with a population that was
resisting colonial laws and regulations. It is culturally signi cant that a Zimbabwean would consider it a
bigger insult to be called a “sell-out” (a term used to describe those perceived to be collaborating with
colonial rulers) than to be called “corrupt”. Delving into the social, political, and economic past of the
country could help future students of corruption gain a deeper understanding of the cultural roots of
corruption. Such a scenario would be useful in starting to inform the anti-corruption strategies that tackle
the under-lying causes of “legitimized corruption”. This is a challenge facing many countries in Africa and
beyond, a challenge whose outcome can be changed by the public dissemination of evidence on
corruption and its consequences as done in these papers.
Mungai Lenneiye

06 An Overview The cost of Corruption on the Economy, Politics

and Social Service Delivery in Zimbabwe (2000-
2015) An Overview, Mutondoro F, Ncube M.S
The state is the most precious prize in Zimbabwe because its power can be used to generate opportunities for
private gain. The private sector employment opportunities are limited; therefore, the occupation of the public
office remains the most dependable means of accumulating wealth (Bratton and Masunungure 2011).
Introduction
There is a global recognition that corruption is a problem that negatively impacts on the attainment of
developmental outcomes such as ending poverty and hunger, the provision of quality and universal
health and education, achieving gender equality, and development of sustainable cities and communities
(DFID, 2015 and Komori, 2015). The consequence of corruption, and how it impacts on development
outcomes, is the motivation behind Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16 on Peace, Justice and Strong
1
Institutions as well as SDG targets 16.5 and 16.6 respectively. Transparency International (2007) notes an
2 3
increasing global consensus on the importance of conceptualizing corruption as one of the major
impediments to development as re ected in the rati cation of the UN Convention against Corruption
(UNCAC) which Zimbabwe is a signatory to. Zimbabwe is ranked amongst the most corrupt countries in
Southern Africa with a low Corruption Perception Index score of 21 (compared to an average of 44 in four
other SADC countries in table 1). This is a re ection of high levels of perceived corruption in the public
sector. Corruption in post-independence Zimbabwe has a long history with such major corruption cases
as the Paweni and Willowvale scandals being traceable back to 1982 and 1988 respectively.
Corruption takes a variety of forms in Zimbabwe, from petty and bureaucratic to grand forms of
corruption involving high-level officials (Chene, 2015; Mwatwara and Mujere, 2015). Corruption manifests
itself through a deeply entrenched system of political patronage, a tight grip by the ruling party over the
security forces, and a history of political violence, repression and manipulation (ibid). The resulting
institutionalisation and systematization of corruption in Zimbabwean political and economic spheres has
been extensive. Against this backdrop, TI Zimbabwe recognized a need after the 2014 Annual State of
Corruption Report (ASCR) to provide a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the social, political and
economic costs of corruption in Zimbabwe in the period 2000 to 2015. Such a meta-narrative on the
cumulative cost of corruption on key governance institutions remains missing in Zimbabwe, thereby
limiting the depth of anti-corruption dialogue.
An analysis such as that proposed here is important, particularly at a time when corruption has become
such a topical public policy concern epitomised by citizen-led social movements like the #ThisFlag and
#Tajamuka Campaign. These and other campaigns are a sign of citizens rising up against corruption,
misrule, bad governance, poverty, and injustice. At the same time, traditional civil society groups have
continued to work with willing and accessible government departments on interventions that support
the ght against corruption; e.g. drafting the new Public Sector Corporate Governance Bill, moving the
Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission from the Ministry of Home Affairs to the Office of the President
and Cabinet, and the launch of the Against Corruption Together (ACT) Campaign by the Judicial Service
Commission. There is a growing convergence on the urgency of the need to tackle corruption, but
divergent views persist on what solutions to apply.
1
2
3

An Overview
Continued...
Resources are needed for generating empirical evidence that allows us to better understand what has
driven the corruption that is weighing down Zimbabwe's development; be it structural, systemic,
historical, socio- economic, or the political dynamics. Grand corruption as a national problem began to
manifest itself in Zimbabwe in the period immediately preceding the year 2000. It is thus possible that the
contributory factors and context of the previous two decades were different or the same as those for the
period cited. The analysis of this 2015 ASCR limits itself to understanding the contributory factors and
context that have prevailed in the period 2000 - 2015 in order to help explain how corruption has in these
15 years become so endemic that critical governance pillars are crumbling under its weight.
Background
Generally, there is a consensus, judging from narratives from all sections of society including academic
and policy narratives that corruption has in the 15 years under review progressively become an endemic
problem in Zimbabwe. Increasingly, the everyday language used by most Zimbabweans conforms with
the Shona adages “Mbudzi inodya payakasungirirwa”4(“a goat eats from where it is tied”), “kudhiza” and or
“kugura”.5 These adages show the extent to which corruption has become culturally accepted. While public
and private sector corruption has been more systemic in its progression over many years, it has been more
amorphous in society – though seemingly in response to the breakdown of a culture of good corporate
governance in both the public and private sectors. Now in all sectors, corruption is becoming accepted as
the way things are done.
In analysing corruption in Zimbabwe, a number of scholars have attempted to problematize Zimbabwe's

colonial past and structural dysfunctional issues that have arisen from it post the colonial era. Mhone
(2000) for instance argued that Zimbabwe's socio-economic and colonial political background created
allocative and distributive inefficiencies that were compounded by post-independence policies of
commission and omission implemented through a divisive political architecture and increasingly captured
administration. Colonialism set a bad precedence of bureaucratic corruption when public office was
attained through favour as a reward for one's loyalty to the settler state rather than on the basis of merit or
quali cation (Moyo, 2014). Gatsheni (2009 and 2011) and Tizor (2009) as cited in Moyo (2014) point to the
colonial legacy as having generated a culture of bureaucratic corruption, patronage, and clientelism that
was inherited by the post-colonial state and which allowed current levels of corruption to ourish after
independence. During the colonial era, both patronage and bureaucratic corruption were manageable
because they were directed at serving a small privileged population of white Zimbabweans. Post-
independence patronage and bureaucratic corruption served a larger population and extended its
tentacles far and wide assisted by the traditional extended family co-dependency that is prevalent in
African societies, thereby unleashing unprecedented levels of corruption.
Whether when the nation tears at the seam it will result in a reformed society that is able to produce a
generation with a culture that is repulsed and not celebratory of corruption shall depend on the present
generation's ability to accurately interpret today's corruption, and quantify the social, political, and
economic damage it has caused, and then convince the next generation on the need for change.
Zimbabwe at independence inherited underdeveloped institutions which provided a fertile platform for
the escalation of corruption (Sibudubudu 2002 and Szeftel 2000a). Mandaza's analysis on corruption in
Zimbabwe problematizes the post-colonial state, and its actors by arguing that:
4 The implied meaning is that everyone should derive benefits from the position that he or she holds
5 Mutondoro (2015) Daily Lives and Corruption in Zimbabwe: Transparency International Zimbabwe National Corruption Barometer

“...the long years of colonial domination and deprivation, not to mention imprisonment and the hard
days of the struggle, became almost the license- albeit for only a few among the many who might claim
such a license – to accumulate quickly; and the state ... appeared the most viable agency for such
accumulation” (Mandaza 1986: 57).”
This analysis resonates with that of Bratton and Masunungure (2011) who argue that the state is the most
precious prize in Zimbabwe because its power can be used to generate opportunities for private gain.
Since private sector employment opportunities are limited, the occupation of public office, therefore,
remains the most dependable means of accumulating wealth (ibid). Shana (2006) is of the view that from
1980 to 1987, the predominant forms of corruption were largely either opportunistic or driven by greed,
but changed during the 1997 – 2001 period into network corruption which involves highly-connected
politicians and elites plundering national resources because of their status and class. Shana (ibid) further
argues that corruption evolved into systemic or managed corruption from 2002 onwards. In view of these
analyses, corruption is presented as both a colonial legacy as well as an outcome of power dynamics in
the post-independence Zimbabwean political economy.
Currently Zimbabwe is ranked among some of the most corrupt countries in Southern Africa. (See table 1
below for Zimbabwe's ranking on the TI Corruption Perception Index6(CPI) in contrast to that of its
neighbours).7 In 2000, Mozambique was ranked the most corrupt of the ve countries cited, but
Zimbabwe became the most corrupt after 2003 and has stayed there ever since.
6 The Corruption Perception Index tracks and measures perceived levels of public sector corruption in countries and territories around the world. The CPI score
ranges from 0 to 100. The lower the score the higher the perceived levels of corruption in the public sector while the higher the score the less perceived levels of
corruption in the public sector.
7 Initially the CPI score ranged from 0 to 10 with 0 being a highly perceived level of corruption and 10 being a highly corruption-free or less corrupt level. The CPI
scale changed from 0 to 10 to 0 to 100 starting in 2012 to date. In this new scale the lower the score is indicative of higher levels of corruption while the higher the
score the more clean or corruption-free the country is perceived to be.

An Overview
Continued...
Table 1. Corruption perception ranking for select SADC countries
Country Zimbabwe South Botswana Zambia Mozambique

Africa
2000 CPI score 3.0 5.0 6.0 3.4 2.2
2001 CPI score 2.9 4.8 6.0 2.6 -
2002 CPI score 2.7 4.8 6.4 2.6 -
2003 CPI score 2.3 4.4 5.7 2.5 2.7
2004 CPI score 2.3 4.6 6.0 2.6 2.8
2005 CPI score 2.6 4.5 5.9 2.6 2.8
2006 CPI score 2.4 4.6 5.6 2.6 2.8
2007 CPI score 2.1 5.1 5.4 2.6 2.8
2008 CPI score 1.8 4.9 5.8 2.8 2.6
2009 CPI score 2.2 4.7 5.6 3.0 2.5
2010 CPI score 2.2 4.7 5.6 3.0 2.5
2011 CPI score 2.2 4.1 6.1 3.2 2.7
2012 CPI score 20 43 65 37 31
2013 CPI score 21 42 64 38 30
2014 CPI score 21 44 63 38 31
2015 CPI score 21 44 63 38 31
The scores in the table above are indicative of the fact that corruption in the public sector is perceived to
be high and on the increase. The 2014 National Corruption Barometer by TI Z and the Afro barometer
corroborated this, as a majority of citizens (68-74%) in Zimbabwe believed that corruption is on the
increase, with bribery being the common form of corruption that citizens experience and relate to within
their day to day lives when interacting with public institutions. As cited in Chene (2015), Zimbabwe also
performs well below the regional average in the 2015 Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom,
especially in terms of freedom from corruption (21 out of 100), and is placed at the bottom of the regional
rankings. The country also performs extremely poorly in all six governance areas assessed by the 2013
World Bank worldwide governance indicators, scoring 2.87 (on a 0 to 100 scale) in terms of freedom from
corruption; 2.37 in terms of rule of law; 2.39 in terms of regulatory quality; 12.92 in terms of government
effectiveness; 9.95 in terms of voice and accountability; and 24.17 in terms of political stability and
absence of violence (ibid). Corruption in Zimbabwe is therefore interwoven into all facets of daily life
(Chiweshe, 2015).
Corruption in Zimbabwe: forms, actors, power bases and interests

The de nition of corruption as abuse of power for private gain (TI, 2012) shows the centrality of power to
corruption transactions. Corruption is therefore an outcome of power dynamics in the absence of effective
mechanisms and institutions for transparency and accountability, and taking place where there are goods
and services valued by a polity. A deeper understanding of corruption in Zimbabwe should seek to
correlate the dominant corruption typologies with the actors involved in order to understand their
interests.

Zimbabwe has both grand and petty levels of corruption which operate in a mutually re-enforcing way,8
making it hard to nd a prognosis of one without dealing with the other. Grand corruption consists of acts
committed at a high level of government that distort policies or the central functioning of the state,
enabling leaders to bene t at the expense of the public good.9 Grand corruption involving the political
elites is indicative of the decay in national politics and governance systems and sets a precedence for
petty corruption involving low-level bureaucrats. Petty corruption refers to everyday abuse of entrusted
power by low- and mid-level public officials in their interactions with ordinary citizens trying to access
basic goods or services from hospitals, schools, police departments, and other agencies.10 Grand corruption
in Zimbabwe: Actors involved, their power base and interest
With grand corruption in Zimbabwe, the stakes are very high as the scandals involve millions of dollars
lost and not recovered. Grand corruption in Zimbabwe has the following four distinct characteristics:
(a) Perpetrators wield political power: the majority of perpetrators of grand corruption in Zimbabwe are
political actors with political backing and in uence. The dominant scandals that Zimbabwe has witnessed
since the 1980s show a trend of multiple perpetrators of corruption wielding political power. For instance,
the case of US$ 15 billion lost from Marange/Chiadzwa diamond mining suggests that the actors
implicated are often powerful politicians belonging mainly to the ruling ZANU PF party, although in some
instances the actors are members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). In most
cases, these perpetrators wield powerful positions both in government and in their political parties.
MDC's complicity in high level corruption scandals was most apparent during its participation in
government. This indicates that corruption is also a crime of opportunity.
(b) High impunity: In most of the grand corruption scandals cases, the alleged actors are rarely
prosecuted. It is on record that the President pardoned some of the perpetrators of the Willowvale
scandals of 1988.11The Anti-Corruption Commission together with the Judicial Service Commission has
proved to be too weak to go after or investigate some of the high cases of grand corruption; largely
because of lack of independence from directives coming from the Executive over who to convict,
prosecute and convict. In 2013 for instance, the commissioners belonging to the Zimbabwe Anti-
Corruption Commission who were investigating the National Indigenization and Economic Empowerment
Board (NIEEB) scandal that the media popularized as the NIEEBgate scandal were blocked from entering
the offices of NIEEB despite the fact that they had obtained a warrant of search.12 Later, the same ZACC
13
officers were arrested on allegations of corruption in what seemed like a calculated move to prevent the
investigation of the “NIEEBgate scandal” from proceeding.
(c) Factional links: Grand corruption in Zimbabwe also needs to be understood from the context of
factional and predatory politics. Due to factional ghting in Zimbabwe's ruling party ZANU-PF, a series of
scandals have been exposed by political players to discredit one another. These scandals and allegations
have only surfaced as a result of political in ghting. For instance, after the then Vice President of
Zimbabwe, Joice Mujuru, was booted out of ZANU-PF, it was alleged that during her tenure in office as a
Minister and Vice President she had been involved in a number of corruption scandals.14 The Herald of 30
October 2014 reported that during her tenure as the Vice President and prior to being booted out of
ZANU-PF, Joice Mujuru had received and signed for thousands of dollars in illegal cash payments from
Kenyan and Indian nanciers who had invested in the Mujuru family-owned duty free shops at the
International Airport in Harare.15 Furthermore, Joice Mujuru reportedly received cash payments in violation
of the Companies Act and income tax regulations, and was further accused of abusing her office and
political status to compel the lawyers of the aggrieved party to unethically renounce agency in addition to
running the investors out of town soon after they had invested over $1 million in capital and made tens of
thousands of dollars in cash payment to the VP's daughter.16 During the time she was still in ZANU-PF, all
these allegations were never exposed or reported and only came to light after she had been expelled
from the party. These incidences have raised suspicion that the media in Zimbabwe is not journalistically
investigating corruption, but is being fed stories by rival factions. Implications of this point to a need for
further scrutiny, but not in this 2015 ASCR.
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
An Overview
Continued...
The Mujuru case is not the only one demonstrating how grand corruption in Zimbabwe is shaped by
factional political ghts. Most recently, William Mutumanje otherwise known as Acie Lumumba who is a
former ZANU-PF youth activist and short-lived chairman of the steering committee for youth
empowerment strategy, was unceremoniously expelled from his ve-day appointment on allegations of
misappropriating funds and con ict of interest. The political system and political actors have, therefore,
only paid lip service to the ght against corruption in this country, when in reality being the main
perpetrators and drivers of corruption in society. This means that grand corruption is not considered a
crime or corruption in the eyes of political actors. The independence of the judiciary has been
compromised by their engagement with politicians and their machinations, and thus failed to rein in
corruption by failing to secure convictions that are deterrent on the politically elite.
By allowing impunity of the politically elite to persist, the justice system has been complicit the spawning
of rampant corruption by creating an environment where those with money and power or access to
power go unpunished.
d) Absence of political will: The term “political will to ght corruption” has gained currency in Zimbabwe
as in many other countries over the years as society grapples with nding the missing link between
effective detection and punishment. Political will in the context of this discussion is de ned as the
commitment of political actors to undertake actions to achieve a set of objectives – in this instance,
reduced corruption – and to sustain the costs of those actions over time. It is worth noting that in
Zimbabwe, the dominant form of corruption is “political corruption,” involving political actors who abuse
publicly-entrusted power. Political corruption is de ned as the use of power by government officials for
illegitimate private gain. An illegal act by an office holder constitutes political corruption if it is an act
directly related to their official duties, done under the auspices of the law or involving trading in in uence.
This form of corruption, therefore, requires political responses. In most narratives on corruption in
Zimbabwe, the main recommendation to the problem of corruption is for authorities to exercise political
will to ght corruption. Thus, political will is a missing element given that most of the perpetrators of
grand political corruption are the same individuals entrusted with upholding the rights, policies, and laws
which they violate for personal gain. Beyond political players those known perpetrators seem to have the
protection of political parties to avoid arrest or conviction. Grand corruption in Zimbabwe, therefore,
thrives because it is located in the political culture of the country, and those wielding political power will
understandably not demonstrate any political willingness to curb it since their continued stay in power is
mutually dependent on the manifestation of this political corruption.
Petty Corruption: actors involved and their interest

The collapse and capture of public institutions: An analysis of bribery in Zimbabwe shows that
corruption is not so much about the actors, but rather an indication of systemic institutional aws and
weaknesses. While bribery is committed by individual actors, it is more important to go beyond the
individualistic act and see the network of power relations endorsed by institutions from which such actors
derive their power bases. Bribery, therefore, mirrors the decay and disintegration of key public and private
institutions - ones with monopoly and control over key political, economic and social services that citizens
and business require. Such services include education, justice, housing, regulation inter alia.

Bribery is, therefore, a re ection of how public institutions have been captured by the self-interest of their
agents and citizens and business, more so when citizens are asked to rank the most corrupt institutions in
Zimbabwe, citizens use bribery as the basis of assessing how corrupt such institutions are. In a recent
Business Transactional Corruption survey by the Zimbabwe Chamber of Commerce for instance, small-
scale and large- scale business operators in Zimbabwe indicated that the police, followed by the State
Procurement Board, are deemed the most corrupt (81% and 64% respectively), followed by ZIMRA and the
City Health Department (48% each), the Department of Works and Building Inspectorate, the Licensing
Office at the Municipality, the National Social Security Authority (NSSA) and the Registrar of Companies.
Of the fourteen agency departments about which respondents were asked, the least often rated as
corrupt was the Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund (ZMDF). The Chart below which was extracted
from the 2014 National Corruption Barometer also shows some of the most cited institutions demanding
and accepting bribes from citizens and business in Zimbabwe
(Source: 2014 National Corruption Barometer)
The data from the Business Transactional Corruption and the TI Z National Corruption Barometer therefore
show that:
Ÿ A number of public institutions have been captured by the individual and personal accumulation
interests of bureaucrats colluding with citizens and business.
Ÿ These institutions are also in a weak state because they no longer have capacity for self-introspection,
regeneration, and reform.
Ÿ Vertical accountability without corresponding horizontal accountability has also made public service
institutions and regulatory bodies more opaque.

An Overview
Continued...
The police are, for instance, perceived by citizens as the most corrupt entity in Zimbabwe mainly because
of their chronic habit of soliciting bribes from motorists as well as the documented disappearance of
17
critical dockets and evidence in their custody in corruption cases. The regular public outcry over police
corruption is consistently been reported in the media, and con rmed by various studies including official
18
Government reports. Perceptually and legally, the police have proved to be compromised by systemic
and political corruption. Corruption in the police as an institution therefore shows the extent to which
such an institution is not only weak, but has also been captured by the self-interest of the bureaucrats.
(a) Bribery, costs of compliance and rational Interest of actors: Bribery in Zimbabwe re ects that the
costs of legal compliance are higher than the costs of bribing both in terms of monetary value, time and
ease of obtaining a service. It is important to note that cost is not only in terms of the money that one has
to pay, but also includes the time one has to wait to get a service that might be a permit, clearance,
certi cate or licence. Cost implications as calculated in terms of time and money determine whether an
individual or entity will choose to bribe or not to bribe when weighed against a cost- bene t analysis.
Corruption is a factor when delaying tactics become either the push or pull factor forcing service seekers
to voluntarily pay bribes or be forced to pay bribes in order to speed up delivery. The Afro Barometer
(2016) indicates that 81.1% of Zimbabweans pay bribes to the police to avoid various problems.
From a perspective of rational choice, people would rather bribe in order to avoid losses, arrest for
operating without a regulatory requirement, or to get a service on time. For instance, a poor vendor in
Harare or similar urban setting would rather bribe municipal police to avoid arrest for selling tomatoes in a
non-designated spot. The situation is not different from a cross border trader who would rather bribe
Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA) officers to smuggle their illegal second-hand clothes from
Mozambique for resale than declare these and pay substantial import tax to ZIMRA or lose the products
altogether. Jobless and educated youth would rather bribe a Vehicle Inspection Department (VID) officer
to get a driver's licence than be deliberately failed for as many times as one refuses to bribe and remain
without a license. This analysis shows that a bribe is an easier and cheaper cost-liability option required in
Zimbabwe to sustain a livelihood or guarantee or obtain a service compared to the higher cost of
complying. For the ordinary Zimbabwean, corruption has a totally different meaning from the way it is
conceptualized by those with political power.
Bribery and pay structure: This report seeks to show that bribery which is quite common in Zimbabwe
also re ects an anomaly or dysfunctionality of government in the pay structure of public servants where
the motivation of demanding bribes is often to supplement the infrequent, and low salaries. While there is
no consensus between economic considerations and empirical evidence on whether an increase in
salaries would reduce petty level corruption in the form of bribes or not, it is still important to note that
petty-level corruption and bribery involving bureaucrats is quite peculiar in the Zimbabwean context.
Civil servants in Zimbabwe who usually demand or accept bribes go for long periods without salaries, and
bribery, therefore, seems to be tacitly encouraged if not approved by the employer (the state).
17
18

At a meeting organized by the International Council of Jurists (ICJ) at Victoria Falls to discuss Traffic Police
bribe-seeking and taking behaviour during the Government of National Unity, Deputy Minister of Home
Affairs Mrs. Theresa Makoni openly stated that while government did not condone the bribe-seeking and
taking of the police, they accommodated it because the Police Service had only received 7% of its
requested annual budget. An additional factor that may predispose civil servants to corruption is the fact
that civil servant salaries are not subjected to cost-of-living adjustments as they used to be in the past.
19
While on average most low-level civil servants earn about US$ 500 or below this amount is not enough to
cover crucial monthly expenses such as:
Ÿ rental which in Harare is on average $80.00 to $120 a month,

Ÿ family grocery $+-100,
Ÿ transport $100
Ÿ accounts and bills ( water bill, electricity) $100.
Ÿ Medical cover, educational fees and other essential social safety nets such as funeral cover
Ÿ Meeting other individual and social obligations such as securing a permanent home and saving enough to
provide nancial security for dependents in the form of insurance in case of death
This situation makes it very difficult for the majority of workers to put aside monthly savings (see Chapter
2 by Chitambara which shows how the savings rate in Zimbabwe have continued to decrease since 2000).
Hypothetically, one can assume that the real income of most civil servants in Zimbabwe is not more than
$80. Moreover, going for lengthy periods without being awarded these low salaries incentivises civil
servants to solicit bribes from citizens using their positions as the vehicle by which to sell services that are
already part of public good or interest. Furthermore, civil servants feel entitled to act with impunity in
looting the state because their superiors display the same impunity. Examples are numerous, including
the impunity displayed by CEOs of state-owned enterprises who are documented as recipients of hefty
salaries for a bankrupt government.20 Such an environment becomes the motivation and justi cation for
bureaucrats to engage in petty corruption. The dysfunctionality of the pay structure is, therefore,
compounded by grand political corruption perpetrated with impunity by those who should provide the
yardstick for ethical and moral rectitude (political leaders and Senior Executives), but who, instead, are the
biggest drivers of corruption in the public services.
Study Objectives
This analysis of social, political, and economic cost of corruption in Zimbabwe set out to attain the
following objectives:
Ÿ Establish and understand the impact of corruption on politics, the economy, and social service
delivery.
Ÿ Document the cumulative cost of corruption in Zimbabwe from 2000 – 2015.
Ÿ Identify the drivers of corruption in Zimbabwe.
Ÿ Provide empirical evidence as a basis for policy dialogue and discussion of the Anti-Corruption
Agenda in Zimbabwe
19

An Overview
Continued...
Key Findings
Corruption and the Political Landscape of Zimbabwe by Sachikonye

This chapter on 'Corruption and the Political Landscape of Zimbabwe explores the political context and
dimensions of the development process and their impact on overall patterns of corruption during the
period 2000 to 2015.The chapter notes that corruption has become deep-seated in Zimbabwe's body
politic and economy. The process of its build-up was gradual from the 1980s into the 1990s becoming
more pervasive between 2000 and the present. Moreover, the chapter paints a picture of corruption in
Zimbabwe as the product of structural forces manifest in, rstly, the dependence of accumulation and
class formation on state power and public resources in the post-colonial development era. Sachikonye's
analysis brings into context the dynamics between corruption and factional politics in Zimbabwe through
highlighting that political corruption has been a means for ensuring that the political reproduction of
power among various political groupings and actors is entrenched. The chapter highlights how the
patterns of patronage of the Zimbabwean state have been sustained through the state's stranglehold
over resources such as land, mines, and means of regulating acquisition such as contracts, permits,
licences and concessions. In terms of recommendations, the author argues that the Zimbabwean political
system can borrow anti-corruption reforms that have worked in other contexts and such reforms include:
Ÿ Determination and commitment to ght the scourge of corruption from the government and
leadership;
Ÿ Strong anti-corruption strategies focusing on effective laws under the guardianship of an
independent judiciary and strong enforcement,
Ÿ Robust anti-corrupt institutions;
Ÿ Reducing the incentives for corruption by providing good remuneration, bonuses and conducive
working conditions to politicians and public servants and civil servants (UNECA, 2015:20).
Interestingly, Sachikonye's analysis concludes that recommendations on the ght against corruption, on
their own, cannot lead to overcoming corruption in Zimbabwean society and economy. The only
sustained long-term effect on political corruption and clientelism is likely to come from economic
development which is likely to result in a growing scal capacity of the state to respond to political
demands in open and transparent ways. Development is also likely to lead to a moderation of the
demands coming from competing groups demanding redistribution so that economic viability is
disrupted to a lesser extent over time by corruption.
The Economic Cost of corruption in Zimbabwe: Evidence and Lessons for Zimbabwe By Chitambara.
While measuring the actual costs of corruption is difficult owing to the varied nature of corruption, the
paper gives detailed empirical evidence of the detrimental effect of corruption on the economy. The
chapter notes that the endemic corruption in Zimbabwe has resulted in an increase in the cost of doing
business. The high cost of doing business in Zimbabwe has seriously eroded the country's internal and
external competitiveness. The country scores very badly on the major business competitiveness indices.
The chapter also makes reference to the revenue loss from corruption through illicit nancial ows. For
instance the chapter makes reference to the report known popularly as the Thabo Mbeki Report authored
by ADB and the Global Financial Integrity on 'Illicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries: 2004-
2013'released in December 2014 that shows that Zimbabwe lost a cumulative US$2.8 billion over the
period 2004-2013 through illicit nancial ows.

The chapter also makes reference to data from the Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe (2014)
and Fidelity Printers and Re ners(2015) indicating that the country is losing more than $50 million worth
of gold every month through smuggling and an estimated US$180 million worth of gold lost annually
through smuggling into neighbouring countries.
The chapter also connects the economic cost of corruption in Zimbabwe to corporate governance.
Chitambara comments that bad corporate governance contributed to a culture of insider loans that the
nation has now inherited through the RBZ Debt Bill. He argues that poor corporate governance in the
nancial sector has led to the collapse of a number of banks. Most bank failures occurred during the
period 2003/4, when 10 banking institutions were placed under curatorship, 2 under liquidation, and one
discount house was closed. For example, according to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) report on the
failure of the Renaissance Merchant Bank in 2011, the collapse of the bank was the biggest pillaging
scandal where the bank owners, working in cahoots with a pliant management, looted the bank to a shell.
In addition, a total of six banks — AfriAsia Bank Zimbabwe, Inter n, Trust Bank, Allied Bank, Capital Bank
and Royal Bank — have closed operations since dollarisation in 2009 due to poor governance structures
and bad loan books. The chapter concludes that higher levels of corruption in Zimbabwe have led to
much lower FDI in ows, less private domestic investment, the lowering of domestic savings, lower levels
of institutional quality and lower levels of life expectancy. Other factors straining the positive
development of Zimbabwe are the large amounts of illicit nancial ows and poor corporate governance
in the nancial sector, which have led to a collapse of a number of banks.
Understanding Corruption in Social Service Delivery in Zimbabwe: Case studies from Local
Government sector by Bhatasara
In her contribution, Bhatasara establishes the dimensions and dynamics of corruption in social service
delivery in the local government sector and examines the social impacts of corruption. Drawing from the
Faucaultian conceptualization of power, Bhatasara argues that the problem of corruption in the delivery of
and access to social services is about power. Her case studies show that power is used by government
officials as a strategy for accumulation. Closely tied to this, she stresses that general citizens also play their
role to fuel corruption, as they are neither passive recipients of social services nor are they powerless.
Citizens exercise their power by making claims to relationships or people that can in uence decisions in
their favour. The study analyses the various spaces in which corruption comes into play, the different types
of social actors involved and the strategies deployed to deliver and access social services in a corrupt
manner. Bhatasara's case studies show that there are no checks and balances that limit power and undue
in uence. Instead of preventing corruption, current legislative, policy and institutional frameworks
promote corruption. She identi es the decline in resources for the public services and administration,
complex procedures, malfunctioning institutions and policies as well as self- enrichment as priority by
officials as major drivers of corruption. Further, the chapter looks at the social impact and how corruption
is socially reproduced. By giving examples from the effects of corruption in different social service delivery
sectors (e.g. health and education), the devastating effect of corruption becomes clear. First, it undermines
the credibility of democratic institutions and counteracts good governance. Second, people pay bribes to
council officials to get the services to which they have a democratic right to access and enjoy. However,
only those who can afford to pay the bribes are able to receive the services. Hence, it is usually the poor
who suffer the most- in particular women and children. In this way corruption aggravates inequality and
injustice. Bhatasara concludes by stating that corruption reproduces itself across generations. The more
corruption develops, the more it becomes engrained in social habits and the easier it is to be passed on
from one generation to the next. In a certain sense, the reproduction of corruption in society produces a
kind of 'corruption culture' with a tendency to permanence.

23
Evidence on the
Economic Costs
of Corruption
in Zimbabwe
07 Evidence on the Economic Costs of Corruption in Zimbabwe

Prosper Chitambara
Introduction
Corruption is generally understood as everything from the paying of bribes to civil servants and the
simple theft of public purses, to a wide range of dubious economic and political practices in which
businesspeople, politicians and bureaucrats enrich themselves (Amundsen, 2000). Corruption manifests
itself in a number of forms: bribery, embezzlement, fraud, extortion (Andvig et al. 2000), illicit payments,
money laundering, smuggling, evasion, the sale of public property by government officials, kickbacks in
public procurement, and misuse of government funds (Reinikka and Svensson, 2005). Corruption is the
outcome of weak institutions.
There is a growing consensus among scholars and policymakers that corruption has an adverse effect on
economic performance. The high levels of corruption in African economies have been cited as one of the
factors accounting for the lack of development as they increase the cost of doing business and the level of
uncertainty in an economy, lower competitiveness through the crowding-out of resources away from
production to rent-seeking (illegal accumulation of wealth) activities, discourage investment, divert
government spending away from public goods such as education and health, reduce government
revenue from taxes, and entrench poverty (Mauro, 1998).
Corruption has also been found to affect the poor disproportionately as they are often deprived of
essential government services. The World Bank (2004) has estimated that globally, more than US$ 1 trillion
is paid in bribes each year and that countries that tackle corruption, improve governance and the rule of
law which helps to improve per capita incomes by 400 percent. Ndikumana (2007) nds that corruption
slows down the growth of the income of the poor, reduces public expenditures that bene t the poor,
causes congestion in social services and shifts resources away from labour-intensive sectors which
reduces the employment impact of growth.
Corruption also increases inefficiency in government expenditure as well as in investment projects as

corrupt officials choose investment projects not on the basis of their usefulness to the economy, but on
the opportunity for bribes and kickbacks the projects present (Hope, 2000). Corruption may also have a
negative effect on economic growth due to its adverse effects on the enforcement of property rights,
leading to obstacles to doing business, to innovation, and to technology transfer. Secure property and
contract laws ensure lower costs for investors and allow the private sector to retain their pro ts, leading to
sustainable economic growth (Mijiyawa, 2008). Corruption may also reduce tax efficiency by boosting the
size of the informal business sector, as entrepreneurs try to avoid dealing with corrupt officials (Dreher
and Herzfeld, 2005).
The state of corruption in Zimbabwe has been described as systemic and endemic and is often cited as
one of the biggest obstacles to economic growth and development. This chapter analyses the economic
costs of corruption in Zimbabwe from 2000 to 2015. However, measuring the full economic cost of
corruption is difficult owing to the variegated nature of corruption and the fact that most of it remains
unreported.

Evidence on the Economic Costs of Corruption in

Continued...
Empirical Evidence on the Economic Costs of Corruption
There is a growing consensus in both empirical and theoretical literature that corruption has a negative
effect on growth and development in developing countries (Tanzi 2002; Svensson 2005; Gyimah-
Brempong 2002). This nding is particularly relevant for developing countries in general and African
countries in particular for a number of reasons. Firstly, governance standards are generally lower in
developing than in industrialised countries and worse in African countries (Ndikumana, 2007). Secondly,
Sub-Saharan Africa performs poorly in terms of growth, relative to other regions (UNECA, 2008). These
reasons suggest that bad governance combined with corruption may be one explanation of poor
economic performance in many African countries.
Wei (1999) reviewed empirical work and provided evidence on the relationship between corruption and
growth, and found that countries with high levels of corruption tend to record poor economic
performance. The channels through which corruption negatively affects economic performance include
reduced domestic investment, discouraged foreign direct investment, overspending in government, and
distorted composition of government spending. Pellegrini and Gerlagh (2004) examined the effects of
corruption on investment, schooling, trade policy and political stability, and estimated the contribution of
the various channels to the overall negative effects of corruption on growth. They concluded that the
effects of corruption on growth are both direct and indirect through negative impacts on investment,
schooling, trade openness, and political stability. Tackling corruption can, therefore, have a positive
impact on FDI and domestic capital formation.
Tanzi and Davoodi (1997) examined the impact of corruption on the quality of investments and found that
corruption lowered the quality of infrastructure as measured by the condition of paved roads and power
outages. Bray (2007) noted that corruption tends to increase the cost of doing business, alter the resource
allocation process and potentially results in higher prices of goods and services. Woo (2010) found that
corruption deters foreign investment and suggested that countries should ght corruption not just for
political reasons, but to also facilitate economic growth. Avnimelech and Zelekha (2011) found strong
supportive evidence that corruption has a signi cant negative impact on entrepreneurship, and thus, by
implication, on economic growth.
Studies by scholars such as Mauro (1998) and Gupta et al., (2000) found that corruption negatively affects
the share of public spending on education and health, while increasing the share on military spending.
The net effect of all these mechanisms is to entail a sub-optimal performance of the public sector both on
the revenue and expenditure sides. This not only affects the overall efficiency of the economy directly, but
may also impact on people's perception of government performance and their willingness to cooperate,
making it more difficult for a government to assume its proper function in regulating the economy and
supplying public goods.
Corruption is positively correlated with lower life expectancy and school enrolment, two variables which
in addition to income per capita (Dreher and Herzfeld, 2005) are used in the construction of the Human
Development Index (HDI). Apart from deepening poverty by reducing the rate of output growth,
corruption tends to increase income inequality by lowering social spending (Gupta et al., 2002). Available
evidence suggests that bribes extorted from the poor tend to be a larger percentage of their incomes due
to the higher frequency with which they confront corrupt officials as well as the proportionately higher
level of bribes charged (Recanatini, 2013). Matthew and Idowu (2013) found that political corruption
adversely affects economic growth and increases poverty as well as unemployment.

Corruption diverts resources away from productive activities thereby harming economic efficiency.
Murphy et al. (1991) demonstrate that corruption by government officials is likely to hurt innovative
activities more than everyday production. This is because corruption and illegal accumulation of wealth
(rent-seeking) is likely to target the innovation sector, which is more vulnerable than already established
producers. The latter group does not need as many 'government goods', as it has already bought them.
Innovators, however, need government-supplied goods such as permits, licences, import quotas etc. Since
innovation drives economic growth, corruption hampers growth severely even if it leaves the established
producers untouched. This argument nds support in Rivera-Batiz (2001), who concludes that corruption
undermines the pro tability of innovations, lowers the rate of return on capital and reduces the rate of
technological change.
State of Corruption in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe is a signatory to a number of international conventions aimed at combating corruption and
corruption-related offences. These include: the United Nations Convention against Corruption (rati ed on
8 March 2007); the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (rati ed on 12
December 2007); the United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic
Substances (acceded to on 20 July 1993); the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating
Corruption (rati ed on 17 December 2006); and the Southern African Development Community (SADC)
Protocol against Corruption (rati ed on 8 October 2004). The country also has established an anti-
corruption commission. In spite of these conventions and interventions, corruption in Zimbabwe has
reached endemic levels and has been identi ed as a major obstacle to growth and development.
Table 1 below shows Zimbabwe's performance on major indicators of corruption perceptions. The
Corruption Perception Index (CPI) score relates to perceptions of the degree of corruption as seen by
business people and country analysts, and is ranged between 10 (highly clean) and 0 (highly corrupt) for
the period up to 2011. As from 2012 the CPI score is on a scale from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean).
Zimbabwe ranks as the most corrupt country in Southern African with Botswana ranking as Africa's least
corrupt country according to the 2015 Corruption Perception Index. The country has, however, slightly
improved from the 2014 ranking.
(Source:Transparency International and World Bank)
Year Corruption Corruption Perceptions Index

Perceptions Index (CPI) Ranking – Transparency
(CPI) – Transparency International
International
2000 3 (out of 10) 65/90
2001 2.9 (out of 10) 65/91
2002 2.7 (out of 10) 71/102
2003 2.3 (out of 10) 106/133
2004 2.3 (out of 10) 114/145
2005 2.6 (out of 10) 107/158
2006 2.4 (out of 10) 130/163
2007 2.1 (out of 10) 150/179
2008 1.8 (out of 10) 166/180
2009 2.2 (out of 10) 146/180
2010 2.4 (out of 10) 134/178
2011 2.2 (out of 10) 154/182
2012 20 (out of 100) 163/174
2013 21 (out of 100) 157/175
2014 21 (out of 100) 156/174
2015 21 (out of 100) 150/168


Continued...
Corruption in Zimbabwe manifests itself in many ways and sectors and also harms the economy. Some of
these manifestations of corruption include bribery, embezzlement, fraud, and favouritism, exorbitant
salaries for public officials, extortion, illicit payments, money laundering, smuggling, poor corporate
governance and tax evasion. Poor corporate governance has become systemic in public enterprises, local
authorities and the nancial sector. Audit reports by the Auditor General have continued to expose poor
corporate governance, fraudulent activities, nancial irregularities and weaknesses in the internal control
systems at most of the parastatals and government departments. The 2014 and 2015 reports of the
Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) detailed the outing of procurement procedures by parastatals
(resulting in the loss of millions of dollars), payment of board fees and management salaries that are not
approved and not re ected on the payroll to avoid paying tax in contravention of the Income Tax Act.
Parastatals have remained a major drain on Zimbabwe's scal resources and negatively affected the
standard of living of citizens.
A substantial share of administrative corruption in Zimbabwe is practised by tax and customs officials,
resulting in lower tax and customs payments by rms who have to make unofficial payments to these tax
and customs officials. Such corruption represents a substantial indirect private transfer in many countries
from the budget to public officials. Table 2 is a comparative analysis of the prevalence and incidence of
corruption in Zimbabwe compared to two country groupings. Zimbabwe does better than both SSA and
all Countries in all the indicators except two indicators namely the percent of rms expected to give gifts
to get a construction permit and also the percent of rms expected to give gifts to get a water connection.
This con rms the fact that corruption is a global phenomenon.
Table 2: Comparative Analysis of Prevalence and Incidence of Corruption, 2011-12

Source: World Bank Enterprise Surveys
Drivers of Corruption in Zimbabwe
Corruption in Zimbabwe is a function of economic, political, and cultural factors. A major driver of
corruption in Zimbabwe is the widespread poverty and low incomes, especially the low level of public and
private sector wages. Shleifer and Vishny (1993) and Ali and Isse (2003) argue that in a country where
economic conditions are poor, there is a tendency for such a country to experience high levels of corrupt
practices that further worsen economic growth rates. They also argue that a country with good
macroeconomic performance stands to experience lower levels of corruption and develops more rapidly.
In a study of less developed countries, it was found that there is an inverse relationship between the level
of public sector wages and the incidence of corruption (Van Rijckeghem and Weder 2001). Rose-
Ackerman (1999: 72) points out, 'if public sector pay is low, corruption is a survival strategy'.
Table 3 shows the trend in real average earnings index for the period 2009 to 2014 (for the whole
economy and the key sectors in the economy), including all costs related to employing workers beyond
the wage in Zimbabwe. The average real earnings index for the whole economy) has markedly declined
from 159 in 2010 to 95.7 in 2014. This means that the purchasing power of wages has diminished implying
that the workers' standard of living has gone down. This trend also con rms that real average earnings in
Zimbabwe have been more downwardly exible than previously thought and have been surprisingly
responsive to unemployment rates and the weakening economy in general.
Table 3: Real Average Earnings Index (2009-2014)

Source: ZIMSTAT


Continued...
Poor and ineffective institutions are a major driver of corruption in Zimbabwe. Mauro (2002) and Rose-
Ackerman (2004) show that corruption is especially prevalent in countries that have a large public sector,
poorer governance systems and inefficient institutions, such as is the case in Zimbabwe and other
developing countries. Strong institutions are an important driver of growth. Conversely, inefficient
institutions as measured by corruption, weak enforcement of contracts and a large bureaucracy, deter
foreign investment (Wei, 2000). By reducing uncertainty, strong institutions reduce transaction costs,
information costs and risks for private rms (Gwenhamo, 2009). Table 4 shows the performance of
Zimbabwe on the major indicators of institutional quality.
Table 4: Indicators of Institutional Quality

Source: Freedom House, Fraser Institute and Mo Ibrahim Foundation
Year Freedom Fraser Ranking Mo Ibrahim Average

Housing Institute Governance Score For
Freedom Economic Score (out Africa
Rating Freedom of 100)
(1=Best, Rating
7=Worst) (out of 10)
2000 N/A 4.6 119/123 36 46.5

2001 5.5 3.6 123/123 36.3 47.5
2002 6 3.5 123/123 36.6 47.8
2003 6 3.7 126/127 36.7 48.1
2004 6 3.2 130/130 36.3 48.4
2005 6.5 3.4 141/141 34.8 48.9
2006 6.5 3.4 141/141 34 49.4
2007 6.5 3 141/141 33.8 50
2008 6.5 4.1 139/141 31.5 50.4
2009 6.5 4.1 141/142 32.4 50.3
2010 6 4.35 142/144 33.6 50.4
2011 6 4.59 149/152 35.8 49.8
2012 6 4.92 149/152 36.8 50.1
2013 6 5.33 149/152 38.7 50
2014 5.5 40.4 50.1
2015 5.5
Another driver of corruption in Zimbabwe is the lack of accountable, effective and ethical leadership.
Hope (2000) observes that the lack of exemplary ethical leadership exhibited by politicians and senior
public officials fuels corruption in most African countries, primarily because personal and private interests
take precedence over national interests (Hope, 2000). When top political leaders fail to lead by example,
either because they engage in or condone acts of corruption to the bene t of relatives, friends, political
associates; employees in the public administration, they cannot be expected to behave differently (Tanzi,
2002).

Other scholars argue that a society is corrupt, tribalistic, nepotic, extravagant and ridden with violence
because its aristocrats and its leaders and rulers and the middle-class are corrupt, sectionalistic, violent
and roguish. Once leadership destroys the cankerworm within itself, the rank and le of society will be
frightened to indulge in questionable practices. Therefore, if we want to reform society, we must rst
reform the calibre of the aristocracy (Kupedeh, 1995).
Lack of political will and an unstable policy environment have also rendered Zimbabwe's anti-corruption
strategy ineffective. Other causal factors that promote corruption in Zimbabwe include excessive
regulations governing the doing business regulations, bureaucracy and red tape, a regressive tax regime,
and lack of transparency and accountability. Table 5 shows the shows the number of days and procedures
required to start a business in Zimbabwe, Zambia and South Africa over the period 2004-2016. The
country is currently undertaking doing business reforms and this process needs to be expedited.
6
Table 5: Starting a Business
Source:World Bank Doing Business Reports (various)
Zimbabwe Zambia South Africa

Time Procedures Time Procedures Time Procedures
(days) (number) (days) (number) (days) (number)
2004 122 10 40 6 38 9
2005 96 10 35 6 38 9
2006 96 10 35 6 38 9
2007 96 10 35 6 35 9
2008 96 10 33 6 31 8
2009 96 10 18 6 22 6
2010 96 10 18 6 22 6
2011 90 9 18 6 22 6
2012 90 9 18 6 19 5
2013 90 9 17 6 19 5
2014 90 9 6.5 5 19 5
2015 90 9 6.5 5 14 13
2016 90 9 7.5 6 46
Corruption and Economic Performance in Zimbabwe: Channels of Causation
In this section we analyse the relationship between corruption and a number of indicators of economic
performance in Zimbabwe. We use two measures of corruption, namely the Corruption Perceptions Index
(CPI) from Transparency International, and the World Bank's Control of Corruption Index (Corruption). The
other measures of economic performance are derived from the World Bank's World Development
Indicators (WDI) database.


Continued...
Poor and ineffective institutions are a major driver of corruption in Zimbabwe. Mauro (2002) and Rose-
Ackerman (2004) show that corruption is especially prevalent in countries that have a large public sector,
poorer governance systems and inefficient institutions, such as is the case in Zimbabwe and other
developing countries. Strong institutions are an important driver of growth. Conversely, inefficient
institutions as measured by corruption, weak enforcement of contracts and a large bureaucracy, deter
foreign investment (Wei, 2000). By reducing uncertainty, strong institutions reduce transaction costs,
information costs and risks for private rms (Gwenhamo, 2009). Table 4 shows the performance of
Zimbabwe on the major indicators of institutional quality.
Figure 1: Per Capita GDP and Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) in Zimbabwe, 1998-2014
20
15
10
5
0
300 400 500 600 700

Per Capita GDP
CPI Fitted values
Figure 1 shows that there is a negative relationship between per income levels and corruption in
Zimbabwe. Higher levels of corruption induce much lower per income levels and FDI in ows. There is a
negative association between Private Domestic Investment (PDI) and corruption in Zimbabwe according
to Figure 2. This implies that corruption seems is detrimental to private domestic investment in
Zimbabwe.

Figure 2: Private Domestic Investment (PDI) and CPI in Zimbabwe, 1998-2014
20
15
10
5
0
-5 0 5 10 15
PDI
CPI Fitted values
Figure 3 shows that there is a negative relationship between savings and corruption in Zimbabwe. Thus,
the higher the level of corruption the lower the domestic savings.
Figure 3: Savings and CPI in Zimbabwe, 1998-2014
20
15
10
5
0
-20 -10 0 10 20
Savings
CPI Fitted values


Continued...
Figure 4 shows the relationship between economic freedom as measured by the Fraser Institute and
corruption in Zimbabwe. Economic freedom is an indicator of institutional quality. Quite clearly, lower
levels of institutional quality are associated with higher levels of corruption.
Figure 4: Economic Freedom and CPI in Zimbabwe, 1998-2014

Source: Data is from the World Development Indicators database, World Bank
20
15
10
5
0
5 5.5 6 6.5
Freedom
CPI Fitted values
6.0 Costs of Corruption in Zimbabwe
It is generally accepted that corruption, regardless of its shape or form is inimical to long-term, sustainable
development. However, measuring the economic cost of corruption is difficult due to the hidden nature of
corruption unless corruption is brought into the public domain. High levels of corruption in Zimbabwe
have resulted in an increase in the cost of doing business. The high cost of doing business in Zimbabwe
has acted as a strong disincentive for local and foreign investment and seriously eroded the country's
internal and external competitiveness, with the country scoring poorly on all the major business
competitiveness indices - as shown in Table 6.

Table 6: Competitiveness and Ease of Doing Business Rankings

Source: World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Reports and World Bank Doing
Business Reports
Year World Economic Forum (WEF) World Bank (WB) Ease of

Global Competitiveness Doing Business Rankings
Rankings
2008 129/131 154/183
2009 118/121 160/183
2010 132/134 156/183
2011 136/139 157/183
2012 132/142 170/183
2013 132/144 172/185
2014 131/148 170/189
2015 124/144 171/189
2016 125/140 155/189
Corruption in Zimbabwe has resulted in a marked increase in levels of scal de cit and domestic
indebtedness as central government has bailed out and taken over the debts of a number of parastatals
including the central bank through the Debt Assumption Act which saw the government assuming the
RBZ's US$1.4 billion debt. Consequently, according to the IMF (2016), total public domestic debt increased
from US$1,124 million in 2013 to US$1,960 million in 2015 (See Table 7). As a percent of GDP, total public
domestic debt rose from 8.3 per cent in 2013 to 13.8 per cent in 2015. Unfortunately, this has had the
negative effect of crowding-out resources from the private sector. Debt repayment will also crowd
resources away from social expenditures. There has been a reduction in government revenues as receipts
from the sale of minerals have not been properly accounted for through the treasury. Government has
also been prejudiced of signi cant revenues through the smuggling of commodities into the country. The
in ation of the cost of projects has resulted in an increase in the cost of services and a reduction in the
quality of services rendered.
2012 2013 2014 2015

Total Public Domestic Debt 1,110 1,124 1,660 1,960
Total Public Domestic Debt (% of GDP) 8.9 8.3 11.7 13.8


Continued...
Corruption has also contributed to a signi cant increase in the levels of informalisation and underground
economic activities in the country. Moreover, corruption has discouraged production and provided strong
incentives for rent-seeking and conspicuous consumption. This has had the effect of undermining
economic growth as well as the ability of government to mobilise resources domestically. As shown in
Table 8 endemic and systemic corruption in Zimbabwe is associated with economic slowdown associated
with weak per capita incomes, low FDI in ows, dwindling public and domestic investments, and negative
savings.
Table 8: Selected Macroeconomic Indicators

Source: World Development Indicators, World Bank
Year GDP Per Inflation FDI Public Domestic Savings

Growth Capita (% of Investment Investment (% of
GDP GDP) (% of (% of GDP)
GDP) GDP)
2000 -3.1 675.8 55.9 0.3 10.5 11.1 15.8
2001 1.4 679.9 76.7 0.1 10.0 10.1 12.3
2002 -8.9 615.1 140.1 0.4 7.4 8.1 1.9
2003 -17.0 507.3 431.7 0.1 11.6 11.7 2.3
2004 -5.8 474.3 282.4 0.1 -0.3 - -2.6
2005 -5.7 443.2 302.1 1.7 -3.3 - -7.4
2006 -3.5 423.2 1096.7 0.7 -1.3 - -9.3
2007 -3.7 402.5 24,411.0 1.1 1.5 3.8 -1.5
2008 -17.7 326.6 - 0.9 1.1 3.0 -21.5
2009 6.0 340.4 -7.9 1.3 6.5 11.2 -9.3
2010 11.4 372.3 -3.1 1.8 4.0 17.2 -2.8
2011 11.9 408.4 -3.3 3.5 0.1 15.9 -14.3
2012 10.6 441.9 -3.9 3.2 1.7 14.2 -16.7
2013 4.5 451.4 -1.6 3.0 1.5 10.1 -16.9
2014 3.8 458.1 -0.3 4.0 1.3 9.8 -12.2

Corruption in Zimbabwe has also worsened external imbalances by increasing the current account de cit
through capital out ows and other nancial leakages. A joint report by the African Development Bank
(AfDB) and the Global Financial Report of May 2013 revealed that between 1980 and 2009, Zimbabwe
cumulatively lost US$11.8 billion due to illicit resource transfers (illicit nancial out ows). Illegal nancial
out ows involve the transfer of money earned through corruption, tax evasion, criminal activities, and
other illegal business activities. The report also found that during the thirty years covered by the study,
Africa cumulatively provided net resources to the world of up to US$1.4 trillion, far in excess of in ows
over the same period. The illicit haemorrhage of resources from Africa is about four times Sub-Saharan
Africa's external debt and almost equivalent to Sub-Saharan Africa's GDP. The direct and indirect
consequences of illicit nancial ows (i.e. reduced investment and revenues for health, education,
employment, income etc.) are major constraints to Africa's transformation. High corruption, coupled with
the risk and uncertainty of the domestic economy, weakens the economic and social measures put in
place, thereby limiting the prospect for more inclusive growth. The incentives for illicit nancial
transactions are closely related to the high rates of savings and investments, particularly the private
sector. Even the estimates of illicit nancial ows – large as they are – are likely to understate the problem
as they do not capture money lost through drug trafficking and smuggling.
Boyce and Ndikumana (2012) found that capital ight in Zimbabwe reached an annual record high of
US$3.1 billion in 2006. A report by Global Financial Integrity on 'Illicit Financial Flows from Developing
Countries: 2004-2013'released in December 2015 revealed that Zimbabwe lost a cumulative US$2.8 billion
over the period 2004-2013 through illicit nancial ows. Furthermore, according to the Minerals
Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe (2014), the country is losing more than $50 million worth of gold
every month through smuggling. In October 2015 Fidelity Printers and Re ners (FPR) reported that the
country was losing an estimated US$180 million worth of gold annually through smuggling into
neighbouring countries. A report titled 'Reap What You Sow: Greed and Corruption in Zimbabwe Marange
Diamond Fields', produced in November 2012 by the Toronto-based pressure group Partnership Africa
Canada highlighted that diamonds worth US$2 billion had been looted since 2008. Speaking in a belated
interview to mark his 92nd birthday celebrations on the state-run Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation
(ZBC) on 3 March 2016 President Mugabe stated that Treasury received less than US$2 billion in diamond
revenues despite earning over US$15 billion.
Poor corporate governance in the nancial sector has led to a collapse of a number of banks, most of
them having failed during the period 2003/4 when 10 of them were placed under curatorship, 2 were
placed under liquidation, and one discount house was closed resulting in a loss of jobs. In addition, a total
of six banks — AfrAsia Bank Zimbabwe, Inter n, Trust Bank, Allied Bank, Capital Bank and Royal Bank —
have closed operations since dollarization in 2009 due mainly to poor corporate governance. Depositors
are currently struggling to recover funds amounting to more than US$115 million after the collapse of
Trust Banking Corporation, Genesis Investment Bank, Royal Bank, Inter n, Capital Bank and Allied Bank.
Inter n, whose banking licence was cancelled in 2012, owes depositors more than US$60 million. Trust,
shut down in 2013, owes depositors US$2.5 million while Genesis, whose licence was revoked in 2012,
owes more than US$1.4 million to depositors.
Deposits trapped in Royal Bank total more than US$11.4 million. As a result of this there has been a loss of
con dence in the nancial sector which has affected the capacity of banks to mobilise long-term deposits.


Continued...
Several civil service audits have documented the existence of ghost workers. The civil service audit of
February - April 2015 was to establish the number of legitimately-employed personnel; and to weed out
'ghost workers' from the civil service payroll. The audit recommended reforms to help government meet a
target of reducing the wage bill from 80 percent to under 40 percent of revenue. The government could
improve on its audit methods by using modern identi cation technologies which capture biometric data
to improve payroll administration and weed out 'ghost employees.'
Fighting Corruption: Best Practices
South Korea has implemented a number of institutional reforms to check corruption and these include
mandated asset declaration for high-level officials, revision of the public service act, expanding the range
of public officials subject to asset registration and post-employment restrictions. Following a major
campaign by civil society a Freedom of Information Act was promulgated in 1998 and a comprehensive
Anti-Corruption Act was passed in 2002. The Anti-Corruption Act introduced a national-level Anti-
corruption agency and a President's Special Committee on Anti-Corruption developed a new system to
assess and monitor corruption. A code of conduct for public officials was enacted in 2003. The open
system - introduced in 1999 – allows the public administration to provide services to citizens online, to
reduce interference. The Government introduced the e-government system that also includes a nation-
wide Government Procurement System, which allows public institutions to submit offers for bids or
contracts and to obtain information on companies that want to bid. This online system also allows the
public to track civil applications and obtain data. In addition, these comprehensive anti-corruption efforts
have been accompanied with extensive investigation and punishment of any corrupt elite (World Bank,
2013).
Anti-corruption efforts in Rwanda have focused on strengthening the legal and institutional framework,
improving government effectiveness, building a strong and competent public service, reforming public
nance management systems, and prosecuting corrupt officials at all levels of the public sector. A number
of anti-corruption measures were introduced between 1997 and 2004. The government has adopted a
code of conduct and rules of disclosure for public officials, and assets declaration requirements for
politicians were integrated into the 2003 Constitution. Strong oversight institutions have also been
created – e.g. the Auditor General Office in 1999 and an effective Ombudsman Office in 2004 which
operates as an Anti-corruption agency, but without prosecution powers. The country has also embarked
on judicial reforms to promote more independent and competent courts, including inspection
mechanisms and disciplinary sanctions to ght internal corruption. The government has adopted a zero
tolerance policy at all levels of the public sector. In 2004 for example, all 503 members of the Rwandan
judiciary were dismissed, allegedly for corruption and incompetence related matters. In 2007, 62 police
officers were dismissed for soliciting bribes (AfDB, 2008). The Rwandese government has since 1997
introduced public sector reforms that included rapid downsizing of the civil service by dismissing 6,000
inadequately quali ed employees, and removal of 6,500 ghost workers. Rwanda has streamlined
administrative procedures, reduced bureaucratic controls and registration requirements in order to reduce
both red tape and opportunities for petty bribery. As a result, Rwanda has one of the most effective
bureaucracies and civil services in the region (Transparency International, 2008).
Botswana introduced the Directorate on Economic Crime and Corruption in 1994 to ght corruption. The
Directorate adopted a three-pronged approach that entails investigation, prevention and education, in
the effective execution of its mandate. While the Directorate has no powers to prosecute, it has achieved
an 83 percent conviction rate for all investigated cases that it forwarded to the Attorney General for
prosecution. The Directorate's success is attributed to a number of factors, including political support,

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission of Nigeria which was established in 2003 is another
moderate success story. The Commission combines both investigative and prosecutorial powers. The
Commission has succeeded in investigating, prosecuting and getting high pro le individuals (including
state governors) convicted of corruption and other economic crimes. A number of convicts have also had
their illicitly acquired wealth con scated by the state and blacklisted from running for public office.
Anti-corruption reforms in Liberia have included ensuring the independence of the General Auditing
Commission, establishing the Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission, reforming nancial management
through a Public Finance Management Act, promoting transparent budget processes, and assuring
Liberia's compliance with the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (TLC Africa, 2010). Steps were
also taken to strengthen the Public Procurement Commission, improve the governance of state-owned
enterprises, and address capacity challenges in the public sector (IMF, 2010). New Zealand, which is
consistently one of the top performers in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index, is a
pioneer in creating transparent budget processes, having approved in 1994 the Fiscal Responsibility Act
and providing a legal framework for transparent management of public resources.
Recommendations and Way Forward
Successfully dealing with corruption involves eliminating the opportunity for corruption by changing
incentives, removing loopholes and getting rid of rules and regulations that encourage corrupt behaviour.
An approach that focuses on changing the rules and the incentives, accompanied by appropriately harsh
penalties for delinquent behaviour is likely to be far more effective if it is also supported by efforts to
improve the moral and ethical behaviour of citizens.
Harmonization and simpli cation of the regulatory framework
The government should expedite the simpli cation and streamlining of the doing business environment
(including the tax administration process), and provide policy clarity, consistency and certainty with
regard to economic policies. To combat the widespread corruption within the tax and customs service, the
number of taxes and tariffs should be reduced and simpli ed. The government should consider adopting
a progressive income tax regime with a uniform tax rate.
Government should embrace e-governance to make service provision and governance more efficient and
effective. This can help ght corruption by raising accountability through digital footprints, raise
transparency by publicizing regulations and fees, and reduce face-face interaction where most requests
for bribes take place. To speed up company registration, the government should also adopt an online
company registration system.
Strengthening the quality of institutions
Corruption ourishes where national institutions and guarantees of basic economic rights are weak
(Knack and Keefer, 1995). Institutional reforms are thus indispensable ingredients in any sustainable
anticorruption strategy. The reforms should be designed to enhance accountability and transparency in
state operations and in major economic institutions. These measures facilitate the creation of more
transparent procedures; the strengthening of internal and external accountability systems; improvement
in recruitment, compensation and training for public and private sector officials; and the creation of
channels of appeal for clients (Johnston, 1998).


Continued...
There is a need to expand and strengthen the national institutional framework for broad-based
stakeholder participation in decision-making, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. This would
help improve transparency, accountability, ensure ownership of policies and encourage social cohesion.
Inclusive institutions also level the playing eld and provide all citizens with opportunities to participate
in and shape public policy (Acemoglu and Robinson, 2012). A national framework for social dialogue that
is inclusive along the lines of the National Economic Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC) in South
Africa, or Economic and Social Councils implemented in other countries, should be created with
participation broadened to cover all key stakeholders, including youths and communities.
Biometric Payroll Registration of Public Sector Workers and Pensioners
In 2015, the Zimbabwe Civil Service Commission successfully completed a physical head count of all civil
servants as part of the staff audit. The process is, however, open to human manipulation and fraud.
Accordingly, Government might not deal effectively with the problem of ghost workers or be able to
remove them from the payroll. The use of modern identi cation technologies like biometrics could be
more effective in cleaning up the payroll and improving its administration. Government should
undertake a biometric payroll registration of all public sector workers and pensioners, as has been
successfully implemented in a number of African countries such as Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya to effect
salary payments. This system captures for each public sector employee details of national identity,
complete biometric data, academic and professional certi cates, letters of appointment, and current
payslip. The system helps to identify genuine public sector workers and pensioners and ush out ghost
ones from the payroll.
Mainstreaming integrity and establishing Code of Ethics for Public Servants
Integrity is a vital ingredient to the effective working of any public institution. There is a strong positive
relationship between people's perception of government corruption and their trust in political
institutions. The government should prioritise strengthening the integrity, openness and credibility of
both government institutions and policy-making processes. This requires institutionalised mechanisms for
disclosure, monitoring and enforcement, as well as for complaint resolution. Maintaining the public's trust
in government also entails ensuring that the integrity of government decisions is not compromised by
con icts of interest. Measures such as the disclosure of private interest, transparency over political party
nancing and lobbying, minimising in uence on nominations of public officials can help to avoid con icts
of interest and enable a more equal distribution of political power across society (OECD, 2015).
A code of ethics to guide public servants and the holders of other positions of responsibility in society is
one major factor responsible for putting a check on corrupt practices. Government should craft and
enforce a code of conduct to govern the behaviour of its employees. To promote ethics in the civil service,
clear rules governing con icts of interest, expected behaviour, and obligatory disclosure of assets should
be enacted and enforced through the code (Shihata, 1999). All public servants, including the President,
Vice Presidents, Ministers, ordinary Members of Parliament and other high ranking civil servants should do
annual declarations of their wealth. This should also apply to spouses and any dependent children of
these officials to circumvent attempts to hide stolen assets by registering them under a spouse or a child's
name. High level public officials should declare their incomes; assets, investments and any nancial
obligations on an annual basis. Failure to comply with such requirements should lead to disciplinary
action and possible prosecution. In addition, those who give misleading information about their wealth
should also be liable for conviction and/or ne.

Endorsement and implementation of EITI
To promote resource transparency, the country should adopt and implement the Extractive Industry
Transparency Initiative (EITI).
To address the issue of tax evasion, the country should enter into Automatic Exchange of Tax Information
(AEI) with destination countries where the proceeds of tax evasion are deposited.
Public Enterprise and Parastatals' Reforms
Public enterprises and parastatals, especially those responsible for enablers like infrastructure, energy and
food security play an important role in the economy. Their state of dysfunction cripples economic
recovery and growth, and hence their rehabilitation and resuscitation is a critical pillar in Zimbabwe's
economic development. The worsening governance and performance of PEs, in particular those entities
that have failed to pay salaries to their workers, and where executives pay themselves excessive salaries
out of line with the performance of their entities should be addressed. An inclusive process that involves
labour unions in the restructuring of public enterprise would ensure that the restructuring process is
broadly owned, and is undertaken in a socially-sensitive manner. By taking a leaf from South Africa, the
Government and public enterprise and parastatal unions could develop and adopt a National Framework
Agreement (NFA) on the Restructuring of Parastatals and Public Enterprises to make the restructuring
process sustainable. Past annual national budgets have targeted key public enterprises and parastatals for
reforms, yet progress remains very slow. Government needs the political will and courage to see these
reforms undertaken within the spirit of consultations given the policy trade-offs necessary for successful
execution.
Strengthen regulation and supervision of the banking sector
Banking sector regulation and supervision needs to be improved so as to deal with issues of indiscipline.
The new banking act which came into effect in May 2016 is a step in the right direction. In addition the
central bank must increase the frequency and depth of its on-site supervisory inspections or
examinations. On-site and risk-based examination of banks must be timely, intrusive, proactive and
forward-looking implying that on-site examiners must conduct in-depth, on-site examination and reviews
of bank records and documentation. In addition the examination should not overemphasise banks'
historic nancial results and conditions in assessing risks. On-site reviews should form the basis for
comprehensive and direct interactions with banking officers and directors to understand strategies,
transactions and the bank's risk pro le. These discussions will also provide insights on the capacity of the
banking executives in managing risks (Zamorski and Lee, 2015).
Enacting the national code on corporate governance framework
A corporate governance framework governing companies, parastatals and local authorities must be
enacted. The National Code on Corporate Governance of Zimbabwe (NCCG) was launched in April 2015
providing a corporate governance framework for governing companies, parastatals and non-
governmental organisations. The code needs to be enacted into a law along the lines of the King Code,
Cadbury Code or Sarbanes Oxley Act to make it more binding. Finally while government must take the
lead in the ght against corruption it is, however, a collective responsibility.

42 Corruption and the Political Landscape in Zimbabwe
Corruption and
the Political
Landscape in
Zimbabwe
08 Corruption and the political landscape in Zimbabwe.

Lloyd Sachikonye
Abstract
This chapter explores the political context and dimensions of the development process, and their impact
on overall patterns of corruption during the period 2000 to 2015. Without an insightful understanding of
the wider political landscape, it is more difficult to explain the dynamics of various forms of corruption in
contemporary Zimbabwe. The chapter assesses how corruption is linked to accumulation, predatory
tendencies and governance processes, and to the reproduction of economic and political power. Finally, it
recommends possible measures that could be taken to address corruption.
Introduction
Corruption is a scourge on society, the economy and politics. It is debilitating and retarding. In Zimbabwe,
its prevalence and scale have grown over thirty years but especially since the late 1990s with the onset of
a major economic crisis. Despite widespread reportage and publicity, the level of corruption has
increased, and not diminished. In its many forms, corruption has become ingrained in the social, economic
and national fabric (see endnote 1). Often described as a cancer, it has spread through the country's body
politic and economy. Although its various tentacles of 'grand', 'systemic' or 'petty' corruption are widely
known and documented, there has so far been little evident will and momentum to root it out.
In this contribution, an attempt is made to explore the political context and dimensions of the
development process as well as their impact on the overall patterns of corruption during the period 2000
to 2015. Without an adequate understanding of the wider political landscape, it becomes more difficult to
explain the dynamics and push factors of the various forms of corruption in contemporary Zimbabwe. This
chapter addresses several key questions as follows:
Ÿ How is corruption linked to accumulation and governance?

Ÿ How has corruption evolved and affected politics and development in the period 2000 to 2015?
Ÿ What links corruption, predation and reproduction of political and economic power, and
Ÿ What can be done about corruption in a developing society like Zimbabwe?
The chapter begins by setting out the analytical foundations for the assessments that try to answer these
questions in subsequent sections.
Analytical Framework
De ning corruption
How corruption is de ned and how its relationship with governance and development is understood is
central to our analytical framework. To do this, we draw on literature developed in recent years.
Previous TIZ Annual State of Corruption Reports (ASCR) have explored the political economy of corruption
in terms of its foundations and manifestations. No social class or group has avoided some form of
corruption in Zimbabwe or elsewhere globally. Some classes or groups engage in 'grand corruption' that
involves huge resources such as millions of dollars of public money or illicit transfers of proceeds from sale
of natural resources as candidly acknowledged by top African decision-makers (AU/ECA Conference of
Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, 2015). It is fashionable to distinguish between
this 'grand corruption' by top political and state functionaries and 'petty corruption' by middle or low-
ranking echelons in both the public and private sectors to avoid con ating the two types or
underestimating the larger scale of resources involved in the former.

Corruption and the political landscape in

Continued...
An ambitious attempt at analysis of corruption distinguishes between 'petty' corruption and 'systemic'
corruption (Ross-Ackerman, 1999). While it may be prevalent in scope, the value of bribery, extortions and
theft in petty corruption are relatively small. On the other hand, systemic corruption involves a larger
number of public sector or private sector officials, and an element of organization and conspiracy (ibid.). It
is corruption at higher levels of bureaucracy involving senior decision-makers and large volumes of
resources such as in large public procurements by government departments and private sector rms,
state-owned enterprises, and aid programmes (Ibid.).
Systemic corruption occurs when corruption becomes a system of government (Ross-Ackerman, 1999). Its
extreme version is kleptocracy or government by theft. Further, a distinction may be made between
kleptocracies where corruption is organized at the apex of Government, and states where corruption is
the province of a large number of middle and low-level officials.
Political corruption is a variant of systemic corruption. Germane for our present purposes, this type of
corruption takes place at the highest level of the political system when politicians and state officials use
their authority to accumulate wealth and sustain their power (Chimbganda, 2013). This form of corruption
manifests itself in electoral fraud as well as a tendency by the incumbent party to exploit state resources in
electoral processes. Political corruption can assume the form of patronage that dispenses political and
material resources to members of a particular party to the exclusion of those of other parties and groups.
Nepotism and cronyism are manifestations of political corruption.
Corruption and Accumulation

The processes of development and governance in developing countries often entail a certain amount of
political corruption. The drivers of this corruption derive from the imperatives of political stabilization in a
context of underdevelopment (Khan, 2006:14). Political stabilization in any country entails redistribution
of incomes. In advanced industrialized countries, the process through which this redistribution is achieved
has characteristics that are different from those of a typical developing country. As Khan observes:
“two of these are signi cant, and together, they help explain why political stabilization in advanced countries
can typically be achieved through transparent mobilizations through the scal process. In contrast, political
stabilization in developing countries typically involves off-budget transfers that usually involve political
corruption…” (Khan, 2006:14).
With large productive sectors, richer countries nd it easier to collect a signi cant share of national
income in taxes, enabling them to respond to political organizations demanding redistribution with a
range of transparent and legal transfers and public service delivery. In contrast, in most developing
countries, the national income is relatively small and hence, only a small amount of tax revenue can be
made available for nancing redistribution.
Most developing countries have sought to achieve stability by selecting the most powerful or dangerous
factional groups and transferring resources through patron-client networks to accommodate these
groups. The result is political corruption because most of the resources transferred through these
networks are off-budget resources often raised through corruption. In some cases, governing factions
engage in corruption or predation and use the proceeds to accommodate powerful clients (Khan,
2006:16). In other cases, powerful clients may be allowed to raise resources for themselves through
corruption with the state turning a blind eye on these resources.

The thrust of Khan's argument is that it is rare for accumulation to occur without some level of corruption
in a political and economic system and at least in its formative stages. However, as a country achieves
more development, and its scal capacity increases, safeguards against corruption become stronger, as
redistribution of resources becomes more transparent through the national budget. However, not all
countries make a successful transition to a self-sustaining accumulation that leads to a reduction in levels
of corruption. The level of development, cohesion in the ruling elite and development coalition, policy
coherence as well as quality of political leadership contribute to capacity for self-sustaining accumulation
Corruption and Governance

There is a nexus between corruption and governance – with corruption being linked to bad governance.
While the pressure to reduce corruption and promote good governance is necessary and desirable, these
ends cannot be achieved unless attention is also given to other governance capacities required for
sustaining growth (Khan, 2006).
According to one perspective, Africa operates mainly through informal and weak institutional structures
and processes that allow corruption to thrive. The de cit in good governance in Africa re ects weak
institutions, ineffective checks and balances, inadequate regulatory and legal frameworks and poor
enforcement mechanisms (UNECA, 2015). A combination of these factors incites corruption. This is not to
ignore the cultural factor in explaining the prevalence of corruption. While gift-giving from an African
principle of social solidarity and loyalty is often interpreted as a corrupt practice in a Western setting, it is
done in African societies to maintain harmony or in response to services rendered (UNECA, 2016).
Nevertheless, the cultural factor should not be overstretched to justify or condone corruption.
Furthermore, corruption occurs in a system in which the authority and practices of government officials
are not monitored (Carnegie, 2014). State legitimacy is adversely affected by corruption to the extent that
it distorts development-planning as well as the implementation of policies. When scarce resources are
diverted by corrupt elements, state capacity to provide basic services to its citizens is compromised.
Low development levels tend to drive the politics of patronage in Africa. In a context of
underdevelopment, local accumulation rests heavily on political office and the ability it provides to
appropriate public resources (Szeftel, 2000:429). Africa's development crisis has intensi ed the
dependence of the emergent national bourgeoisie and ruling class on the political domain, speci cally on
the state, and increased con ict as rival factions compete for a diminishing pool of resources. Arguably, far
from arresting the upward spiral of corruption, economic liberalization and attendant governance reforms
have sometimes intensi ed it (ibid.). Thus corruption is the product of structural forces and often
expresses itself through political patronage or clientelism. Clientelism is de ned as the exchange of goods
and services for political support, often involving an implicit or explicit quid pro quo. It has been a widely
employed mode of political mobilization in societies where peasant or migrant or otherwise excluded
communities are integrated into electoral political competition. At the same time, clientelism is
characterized by widespread corruption as competing patron-client networks form factions that ght to
gain privileged access to public resources. According to this argument:
“corruption is thus a symptom of intense factional competition, indeed, it could be argued that the more
intense this competition becomes (as the result of economic crisis) the more endemic corruption is
likely to become too. The nature of this malaise was built into the fabric of the post-colonial state at its very
inception” (ibid.).


Continued...
The foregoing analytical discussion allows us to see the nexus between corruption and the development
process (through accumulation) on the one hand, and corruption and the political or governance process,
on the other. Far from being merely a matter of personal choice or predilection, corruption has a structural
basis that feeds its systemic roots. As we observe in a later section of this chapter, without
acknowledgement of the historical and structural dimensions as well as the political manifestations, the
strategies aimed at addressing corruption are bound to fall short. This phenomenon is the subject of the
sections that follow as we explore how it applies to Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe's Political Economy and Corruption, 2000 -2015

Although Zimbabwe was relatively industrialized with a diversi ed economy at independence in 1980,
and had comparatively better prospects for a development takeoff, during the late 1980s it fell into the
pattern of the African politics of clientelism. During the 1980s, the economy was relatively stable but
growth was slow. Perception of corruption levels was low until the Willowgate car scandal in 1988.
Although Willowgate involved several cabinet ministers, its scale was perceived as being limited and
relatively benign. This corruption scandal should have, nevertheless, been treated with utmost seriousness
to provide an example to deter future scandals (Interview with an ex-Cabinet Minister, January 2016).
During the phase of economic structural adjustment between 1991 and 1996, the scale of corruption was
also limited against a background of sluggish growth. However, the second half of the 1990s witnessed
growing social and economic pressures and contractions. Corruption within the state became more
serious when evidence emerged on the pillaging of the War Victims Compensation Fund when ministers
and politicians, senior bureaucrats and military officials were named as bene ciaries of the “looting” as it
popularly came to be known. The demand by war veterans in 1997 for compensation in the form of
gratuities directly led to a run on the state scus, and produced unprecedented devaluation of the
Zimbabwe dollar in November 1997.
As the 1990s drew to a close, stagnant growth and rising social discord formed the background to the
military intervention in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1998. While the campaign proved a major
drain on limited state resources, it also provided new opportunities for accumulation and corruption by
the ruling elite primarily, senior politicians, military officials and well-connected business leaders.
A concerted challenge from a rapidly growing opposition movement grouped in the Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) in 1999-2000 created panic within ZANU- PF. An electoral process riddled with
violence, and a land reform programme hastily implemented without requisite planning and
coordination, created a political and economic crisis that also adversely affected Zimbabwe's international
relations, especially with the West. This was the background to the upsurge of corruption rstly between
2000 and 2008, and secondly during the period of the Government of National Unity (GNU) between 2009
and 2013. In particular, it should be noted that the period 2000 to 2008 witnessed the largest contraction
of the economy by about 40 to 50 per cent, and the worst hyperin ation that the country had ever
experienced (over 2 million per cent). This period was also an era in which selective sanctions were placed
on some government, military and business officials for propping the Mugabe government.
In the setting of a declining economy and rising unemployment, corruption thrived partly as a coping
strategy. Petty corruption spread by leaps and bounds as state bureaucrats sought bribes for public
services like access to birth certi cates, passports and a myriad of licenses and permits. As the
government faltered in making regular and sustainable salaries to public servants, the latter increasingly
relied on bribe payments as currency for survival. As one doctoral study covering this period observed:

“given the low salaries public servants received in the period 2000 to 2009, corruption was used as way to
subsidizing the state. If the public servants were not corrupt, perhaps the country could have collapsed totally
to a level worse than was experienced. In this light, corruption was perhaps a positive force that was created by
policy and economic failure, but prevented total economic collapse…” (Moyo, 2014:300).
It is rare to come across studies that provide justi cation for corruption but there may be some grain of
realism in the conclusion that some element of corruption was necessary for the continued functioning of
certain state structures at that time. At the same time, corruption in the land reform process reached
worrisome levels by 2003 while the nancial crisis threatened to destabilize the economy (Utete, 2003;
Davies, 2004).
No less an institution than the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) expressed anxiety and discom ture about
the rapidly rising level of corruption in the early 2000s. In this section, we draw extensively from an
assessment of broad corruption trends as they spread through the economy and society. Box 1 provides a
list of the main forms of corruption in 2005 as diagnosed by the RBZ. It is scarcely surprising that the RBZ
was seized with the debilitating spread of corruption: between 2003 and 2008, under the mercurial
leadership of Gideon Gono, it played an uncharacteristic interventionist role that overshadowed the
Ministry of Finance. However, this did not prevent the RBZ from shady interventions that fanned
corruption itself. Some of those questionable interventions involved use of public resources including
savings and earnings in politically oriented interventions and measures. They included the following
signi cant funds without adequate targeting, management, accounting, and monitoring mechanisms:
Ÿ the Productive Sector Finance Facility in 2003 (to assist rms in various sectors to boost production),
Ÿ the Agricultural Sector Productivity Enhancement Facility (ASPEF) in 2005 to resuscitate the agricultural
sector,
Ÿ the Parastatals and Local Authorities Reorientation Programme (PLARP) in 2005 to remove structural and
supply rigidities,
Ÿ the Troubled Bank Fund in 2003 to assist distressed and solvent banking institutions with temporary
liquidity support and
Ÿ the Basic Commodities Supply-Side Intervention Facility (BACOSSI) in 2007 to assist producers and suppliers
in speci c sectors to have access to concessional production-linked nancial support for working capital
requirements (Gono, 2008).
As we can observe from the extensive range of interventions, not only the public sector but the private
sector was drawn into at web that was not immunized against corruption. No sooner had these various
programmes and funds been established by the RBZ than loopholes were exploited for self –enrichment
and aggrandizement by politicians, bureaucrats, businessmen and citizens.
Box 2 provides a summary of instances of corruption in various sectors ranging from agriculture to
manufacturing, and from mining to parastatals. It demonstrates again how both the private and public
sectors were drawn into collusive corruption whose impact on the economy had dire consequences and
came to a head between 2006 and 2008. The backlash against ZANU-PF in the March 2008 elections was a
clear message to the ruling elite that the economic conditions were unsustainable, and that pervasive
corruption was excessive and unpalatable.


Continued...
Box 1: Select Forms of Corruption, 2005
1. Payment of bribes to law enforcement agents by fugitives in order to have their economic and
other forms of crimes quashed;
2. Paymentof bribesby traders– individualandcorporate- to ZIMRAofficialsfor underpayment
of taxes and import duties, as well as under-invoicing of export shipments;
3. Misrepresentation of facts by some Ministers with the effect of misdirecting public opinion and
sentiment, which in turn created a false sense of security, particularly in the food and energy
sectors;
4. Outright diversion of resources from purposes for which they were provided into own use. This
included productive sector funds, foreign exchange, and other support in kind such as machinery
and equipment, which was being diverted to kick-backs and bribes;
5. Smuggling of precious minerals and basic commodities including sugar, grain, cooking oil, soap,
and many others which are sold into regional economies on the strength of bribes being paid
to inspectorate arms of Government to turn a blind eye to the leakages;
6. Flouting of tender procedures and biased awarding of contracts even to costly suppliers and
contractors on the back of patronage, kick-backs and bribes;
7. Patronizing and wasteful publicity and advertisement campaigns by parastatal and municipal
sectors aimed at swaying government policy into condoning their under-performance;
8. Nepotismin keysectorsandinstitutionswhereefficiencynormsweresetasidefor considerations
otherthanproductiveefficiencyand
9. Insider dealing, for instance on the Stock Exchange, as well as ‘interested party effects’ on
formulation of key government policies such as the setting of producer prices.
Source: RBZ, 2005: 10-12
During the period of the Government of National Unity (GNU) (2009-2013), policy changes provided relief
to the economy and citizens. Growth was dynamic during the period 2009 to 2011. There was currency
stabilization with the institution of a multi-currency regime in place of the Zimbabwe dollar.
Hyperin ation disappeared. However, stabilization did not necessarily mean a reduction in corruption.
Both systemic and petty corruption persisted, and even deepened in certain instances.
Several distinctive features were prominent in the corruption forms and scale during the GNU phase. The
rst related to the growing prominence of natural resources mainly diamonds and gold as well as land
including wildlife conservancies in corruption patterns. The ruling elite and business and small operators
were drawn into diamond mining following the discovery of deposits in eastern Zimbabwe at Marange in
2006. As the TIZ ASCR report of 2012, explains in some detail, the scramble for diamonds, and that for
gold in other regions of the country, entailed a web of corruption in which state companies, foreign rms
and the military were involved (TIZ, 2012). There was little transparency in the awarding of contracts to
develop the mines and in the marketing of the minerals.

Box 2: Forms of Corruption and Sector-Specific Corrective Mechanisms, 2005
Sector Issues
Agriculture • Abuse of concessionary funds
• Under-invoicing of agricultural exports
• Non-payment of loans
• Un-productive and speculative use of land
Mining • Smuggling of minerals outside the country
• Parallel market trade in metals and other minerals
Manufacturing • upply of products to the black market at the expense of
the formal market
• Under-invoicing of exports
Tourism • Hoteliers and booking agents externalizing foreign
currency
• Smuggling of trophies and wild life outside the country
Public sector and Parastatals • Subverting the national interest for personal gain through
bribery
Energy Sector • Abuse of fuel intended for farmers
• Fuel importers holding on to product to influence price
• Bogus fuel traders externalizing foreign currency
Source: RBZ, 2005:61-64
The consequence of opaque deals in the diamond market was that the Ministry of Finance did not receive
the expected amount of revenues from the companies during the period 2009 to 2013. A report alleged
that some of the revenues were diverted to other branches of the state for the nancing of the 2013
election campaign of ZANU PF (Global Witness, 2012). Instead of anticipated tax revenues of up to USD
600 million annually, less than USD 100 million were remitted creating a large hole in the national budget
(Ministry of Finance, 2012). Leakages in revenues from gold mining also occurred with some politicians
and business syndicates securing huge gains during this period. For instance, in an interview with the
Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) to mark his 92nd birthday in February 2016, President Mugabe
stated that:
“We have not received much from the diamond industry at all, I don't' think we have exceeded USD 2 billion, yet
we think more than USD 15 billion has been earned. Lots of smuggling and swindling has taken place…” (The
Standard, 14 March 2016).
Since the broadcast of that statement, there has inevitably been a debate on the accuracy of the USD 15
billion gure, but the general sense that a huge amount of diamond proceeds cannot be accounted for
cannot be disputed.
Corrupt deals in land transactions were another form of corruption during the GNU period. The
phenomenon of 'land barons' appeared during this period – with considerable fortunes made in land
transactions in urban and peri-urban areas. There was also a scramble for ownership of wildlife
conservancies. The conservancies were sought after for revenues derived from tourists and hunters.
Inevitably some of the land-related con icts that ared up during this period related to ownership of
conservancies in such provinces as Masvingo and Manicaland (JOMIC, 2011).


Continued...
Finally, a sector that became prominent in corruption was the parastatals where salaries and allowances
for executives reached staggering levels. Drawing on USD-denominated salaries and allowances pegged
on earlier unrealistic Z$ denominated salaries regardless of the performance of a parastatal, the executives
were amongst the highest earners in the economy, as shown by the ASCR report of 2015 (TIZ, 2015). Not
only was the gap between these high executive salaries and those of the general staff huge, but most
parastatals were in de cit and often unable to pay their workers regularly. Local urban and district
authorities were riddled with similar challenges of corruption and mismanagement. Parastatals and town
councils were the metaphorical cash cows of this era.
Two developments that were consequences of institutional decisions during this period may be recalled.
The widespread interventions of the RBZ listed above had far-reaching effects on the economy. Its quasi-
scal interventions resulted in a bill of about USD 1.2 billion, which was beyond the resources available to
the Bank in 2014. A law was subsequently passed in Parliament in 2015 for Government (or rather tax
payers) to pay this amount whose bene ciaries included elites who had bene ted from the subsidies and
equipment distributed by the RBZ. A second development was the recruitment of up to 15 000 officers
onto the civil service payroll to carry out the programmes of the incumbent party ZANU-PF. The dispute
over the auditing of the civil service staffing during the GNU era revolved around these party-aligned staff
that drew from the public purse. In sum, the economic costs of political corruption were quite signi cant,
as these two developments, amongst others, show.
Politics of Predation and Accumulation

The wide publicity given to corruption scandals in the media is often accompanied by a super cial
assessment of the patterns of predation and accumulation of the past fteen years (see endnote 2).
Although individual faces illustrate speci c cases of corruption, the class and party dimensions of graft are
not provided in the popular media discussion. Bene ciaries and participants in corruption have some
anchorage in class and party, in ethnic group and region.
One insightful attempt assessed the predatory aspects of politics during the period under review. It
argued that while developmental coalitions seek to deliver public goods, to exercise state power with
restraint and to respect human rights, predatory coalitions rely heavily on political coercion and narrowly
focus on the extraction of resources for factional or personal gain (Bratton and Masunungure, 2010:10).
According to this perspective, when President Mugabe pardoned his party allies involved in corruption in
1988 and later, he gave the signal that the rule of law would be sacri ced to predation (Interview with an
ex-Cabinet Minister, January 2016).
The basis of predation was set when the political leadership gave priority to the consolidation of state
power by installing party loyalists in the armed forces, the civil service and local government (Bratton and
Masunungure, 2010:10). Predatory leaders rely on coalitions. In Zimbabwe, the top echelons of the ruling
party and state have always been deeply fused with leadership from military and intelligence
backgrounds, a legacy of the liberation war (ibid, v). However, as governments mismanage the economy,
and as patronage resources shrink, so political elites tend to coalesce around a smaller and smaller set of
players. In Zimbabwe, a civil-military coalition coalesced over the years without the participation of
business and labour in a wider developmental coalition. Indeed, an opportunity to form such a
developmental coalition between the ruling party, business and labour had been missed in the 1990s.
Concluding their discussion on the context of predatory rule, Bratton and Masunungure argue that:

“had Zimbabwe's top leaders chosen to build on the legacy of a strong and capable state to expand and
reorient an already diversi ed private economy, Zimbabwe could have registered broad-based
economic growth and social development…” (2010:1).
Instead a predatory coalition of party and security elites used the coercive and extractive powers of the
state to consolidate their political control and self-enrichment. The deepening of corruption during the
period under review is explained by the structure and orientation of this predatory coalition of politicians,
bureaucrats, military and business elites that cut across the public and private sectors. Its orientation was
not for a broad national development project, but for a narrow self-serving one. This needs to be
explained. The vision of this myriad of elites was not geared towards using assets or capital acquired or
con scated from other social groups for investment or re-investment. The proceeds from newly-
con scated farms were not productively used to generate more re-investment to improve farm
productivity and output. Surpluses were not directed to improvement of infrastructure and maintenance.
Considerable amounts of rents were directed not into domestic investment but expatriated. While the
economy received little foreign investment, the proceeds from corruption were channeled out of the
country through various forms of money laundering. For instance, illicit capital ows were estimated at
USD 500 million annually (RBZ Governor Mangudya, The Herald, 14 December 2015).
With the exception of investments in real estate, most of the corruption proceeds were utilized in
conspicuous consumption. Expensive vehicles, travel and recreation were the de ning symbols of the
elite, and not investment into new industries to reverse de-industrialization, infrastructure deterioration,
poor services and job losses. The conspicuous amassment of assets such as land and houses as well as top
of the range vehicles have become distinguishing features of this nouveau riche. The extraordinary wealth
accumulated by members of the ruling elite was illustrated in court records of the divorce cases of some
of the Ministers – where one such minister had amassed about 70 properties in different cities and towns
as well as 14 vehicles (ACT-Southern Africa, 2012). It was observed that this level of accumulation was 'a
tip of the iceberg since there could be many other senior officials who have similar or more wealth' (ibid).
The leaders of opposition parties also joined in this accumulation and during the GNU period, some of
their luminaries took advantage of their positions in city and town councils to amass housing stands and
other property to the anger of supporters and voters who had higher expectations of their conduct in
office.
It would be too sweeping to state that all resources gained through land con scation or asset stripping
were frittered in consumption. There were some exceptions. There were politicians who used the proceeds
to diversify into livestock production, banking, tourism and transport business as Obert Mpofu did in
Matabeleland North and Bulawayo (Partnership Africa Canada, 2012). Others had ambitious projects in
dairy production. However, it is still too early to conclude whether the trajectory of this type of
accumulation will prove to be sustainable in the medium and long term.
The 'one person, one farm' policy enunciated in 2003 was honored more in breach than compliance by
this elite. Until 2016, Government resisted a comprehensive land audit that would have provided a base
line for how land had been allocated, and how transparency and fairness in that allocation could be
tested. Commitment to fair compensation to white commercial farmers whose land had been seized was
only formally expressed in 2016.
The debate on the merits and demerits of Zimbabwe's land reform will continue for some years to come
(Raftopoulos, Hammar and Jensen, 2003; Scoones et. al., 2010; Moyo and Chambati, 2013). That it led to
decline in production of certain commodities after 2000 is not in doubt despite the increased
opportunities that became available to small farmers. That the reform process witnessed signi cant asset
stripping is also not in doubt (TIZ, 2013). While personal wealth may have accrued to some elites as a
consequence, signi cant investment and growth in agriculture have not been the outcome. Consumption,
rather than sustained accumulation involving signi cant outlays of capital and commitment of other
resources, has been the major focus. Where corruption played a part in economic development as in the
Asian Tigers, the elites focused on domestic investment, and not consumption.


Continued...
An important study on patterns of consumption by the predatory elites observed that the real costs of the
'personal wealth acquisition' project have been imposed on ordinary Zimbabweans in terms of economic
contraction and foregone growth:
“… this could well be a cost that they would nd worth paying if the bene ciaries were an emergent capitalist
class that might provide the basis for better growth in the future. But as yet we do not see evidence of
this…Instead it appears that previously accumulated capital has been destroyed or, in effect, converted into
private wealth. This has happened largely with the blessing of the government.
Its policies have created the conditions for rentier capitalism, creating greater incentives for rent seeking and
speculation than for accumulation of productive capital…” (Davies, 2004; 39-40).
What was apparent when Davies was making his analysis more than a decade ago has not changed
substantially. As we observed above, the loss of revenues from mining and other resources has not
generated a sustained form of accumulation and job opportunities for Zimbabweans. To that extent,
corruption and predation have represented a double loss – to citizens and the national economy.
Yet some exceptional cases in entrepreneurial accumulation without corruption have been possible.
Despite obstruction from the state and its bureaucracy, the case of the Econet telecommunications
company under Strive Masiyiwa demonstrated that it was possible to create signi cant wealth in the
economy without resorting to corruption and predation (African Business, 2015); but there was a price to
be paid for his success without state patronage. He has felt too insecure to visit his own country of birth
for many years. Zimbabwean entrepreneurs that have excelled have often been discouraged from
physically operating their companies from home. Accordingly, their businesses continue to be managed
by others on their behalf.
Although state patronage in business is actively encouraged for purposes of political control, it is not
efficient or effective or coordinated. In most instances, it results in drawing scarce resources from the state,
or results in mediocre performance. State fear of independent entrepreneurs is strong but unnecessary – a
fear that comes from perceived possible loss of control and power if such a class of entrepreneurs
emerged independently. This is another distinctive feature of a predatory state.
In sum, the Zimbabwean state has actively used its patronage through its hold over resources such as
land, mines, contracts and tenders to reward or penalize companies and entrepreneurs. The payback
sought from the companies and parastatals has included donations to the ruling party between and
during elections. The criteria used to reward companies have not featured competence and pro tability
highly and this has been to the detriment of economic growth. Innovation and efficiency have not been
key criteria. Corruption and opaqueness have characterized this mode of state-business relations. It is
scarcely surprising that some of the businesses were party-related companies and others connected to
the military (Southall, 2013). The majority became a drain on the state rather than successful 'champions'
in their eld of operations.
Impact on Petty Corruption and Human Development

The thrust of this contribution has so far focused on the forms and consequences of systemic or grand
corruption. But what has been its impact on petty corruption particularly, and on human development
more generally? De ned as 'small time corruption', petty corruption is the more common type that
involves more people and volumes of transactions. As its name implies, the type of corruption involves
'palm greasing' in forms of small bribes in exchange for a quick provision of a service or for queue-
jumping where a bureaucratic process or service is long and cumbersome. Petty corruption can take the
form of payment for a bribe to avoid paying a ne for committing an offence. Petty bribes have often been
paid in order to obtain a passport, birth or marriage certi cate, a driver's license, a place in an educational
institution, a visa, residence permit, import license or customs rebate.

The most fertile environment for the proliferation of petty corruption is a 'shortage economy' (especially where
basic commodities are in short supply), and where the bureaucratic process is long and cumbersome. Such an
environment existed in Zimbabwe particularly between 2000 and 2008, as we have already observed above.
Against the background of an economic crisis, petty corruption to obtain maize meal, fuel, travel documents,
foreign currency and various licences became a 'new normal' on an unprecedented scale (Interviews with a
Researcher and an ex-Cabinet Minister, January 2016). This type of corruption became endemic with police and
low-level and middle-level public sector (government and parastatal) officials often involved. It also drew in
private sector participants as bribers and bribe takers.
Admissions and favours in clinics, hospitals and educational institutions have drawn more officials into the
web of petty corruption. Although the amounts of bribes paid may not be high, they are still signi cant at
a personal level. In the hyper in ationary environment of that era, the rise of a 'parallel market' in
currencies and basic goods contributed to the explosion in the volumes of petty corruption. Precisely
because it was under cover, it is next to impossible to quantify the monetary volumes of the petty
corruption of that era.
While the 'shortage economy' in basic commodities receded in 2009, petty corruption associated with
bureaucratic and law enforcement processes continues to thrive. Amongst its active participants are the
police with the 'road block' symbolizing the common site of bribery exchange but also the judiciary and
bureaucratic processes that issue government documents, licenses and permits of one type or another
and customs rebates. Citizens and rms are caught in this web of petty corruption as they seek to obtain
those documents and permits as well as vacancies. Due to the existence of systemic corruption and its
spread and the lack of regulation and control, low and middle-ranking officers in public and private
sectors feel fewer inhibitions in participating in this part of the 'corruption chain'. To that extent, there is
some symbiosis between petty and systemic corruption.
Interestingly, a number of surveys throw some light on the patterns of petty corruption in Africa, including
speci cally, that in Zimbabwe. Across 34 countries that were surveyed, the police were perceived as the
most corrupt public institution; on average, about 42 per cent of citizens said that 'most' or 'all' police
were corrupt (Afrobarometer, 2015). Some 62 per cent of Zimbabweans interviewed in that survey
believed that most or all police were corrupt. Signi cantly, public perceptions of police corruption showed
the greatest increase with a 20-percentage point jump between 2002-2003 and 2011-2013
(Afrobarometer, 2015:5). A related survey established that across Africa the police and business executives
were seen as having the highest levels of corruption (Afrobarometer and TI, 2015:3). It added that 22 per
cent of people who had come in contact with a public service in Zimbabwe in the previous 12 months had
paid a bribe (ibid.). Out of six key public services, people who came into contact with the police and courts
were most likely to have paid a bribe (ibid.). In that survey, it was signi cant that about 80 per cent of
Zimbabweans surveyed believed that the Government was doing 'badly' in ghting corruption; and to the
majority of citizens in Zimbabwe, petty corruption is pervasive and the government has been unable to
curb it.
The impact of both systemic and petty corruption on human development has been negative, although
the impact is difficult to measure just as it is a challenge to quantify the cost or the losses arising from
both forms of corruption. If it were possible, it would be very useful and illuminating to establish and
compare the volume and value of both petty and systemic corruption. It would be surprising if the value
were less than 1 USD billion annually (or about 25 per cent of the annual national budget). For instance,
ZIMRA was quoted as estimating that corruption losses amounted to about USD 2 billion in 2012 alone
(Zimbabwe Situation, 23 October 2013).


Continued...
The diversion of resources to corruption has signi cant implications for human and socio-economic
development in Zimbabwe. These aspects are examined in the chapter on social and human development
elsewhere in this ASCR Report. It suffices here brie y to underline the wider effects. First, resources such as
taxes and fees that should have owed into the public purse are diverted into individual pockets; as a
consequence, development programmes are starved of resources. Key social services like health and
education, and job creation are adversely affected. Infrastructure does not receive requisite funding.
Corruption also discourages domestic and foreign investment (GAN Integrity, 2014). The combined effect
of these factors is a slower development process.
Second, slow or contracting development creates unemployment conditions and reduced demand for
goods and services. Outmigration of between 2 million and 3 million Zimbabweans has been one of the
consequences of the economic crisis during the period under 2000 and 2008. The departure of some of
the most educated, skilled and experienced Zimbabweans for the Diaspora has signi cantly affected
institutional performance and memory (Crush and Tevera, 2010). An estimated 2 million Zimbabweans are
in South Africa, with some 200,000 in Botswana and another 200 000 elsewhere in other African countries
(Kanyenze and Makina, 2009). Finally, the levels of petty and systemic corruption could not fail to have an
impact on moral values and standards in Zimbabwean society. There has been an erosion of trust,
credibility, accountability and transparency. This has adversely affected the reputation of leaders,
institutions and communities.
Reproduction of Political and Economic Power

Although most parties (including governing parties) denounce corruption, they are bene ciaries of
corruption to a greater or lesser extent. Corruption is intrinsic to their political reach, base and survival.
This makes their response to corruption a contradictory one. On the one hand, it is an illicit practice that
should be eradicated yet simultaneously it is an important resource for their political survival especially
during elections. This explains the schizophrenic attitude to corruption by parties and elites.
The electoral politics infused with patronage and corruption that was shaped in the rst Independence
elections has in uenced the approach to political mobilization in subsequent polls in most African
countries, including Zimbabwe. According to Allen (1995: 304), the parties that achieved electoral success
“had two strategies for party building and creation of electoral support: a reliance on individuals who
already had considerable local followings, and the use of clientelist ('patronage') politics to bind notables
to the party and local voters to the candidates. In essence, voters were offered collective material bene ts
(roads, schools, clinics, water, etc.) for their votes, while candidates and notables were offered individual
bene ts (cash, access to licenses, credit or land etc.)
The objective was to have a set of locally based parliamentarians or senators who were responsive to local
needs and demands, and loosely organized into parties whose leaders had access to private or public
resources. Political mobilization thus rested on clientelist politics in which local and regional power
brokers were incorporated into national political movements and electoral support was exchanged for
access to state resources (Szeftel, 2000:433). Support was exchanged for access to state resources, and the
citizens of the new state were integrated into electoral politics on the basis of the access to public
resources that political competition afforded.

Zimbabwean electoral politics have not been an exception. A close perusal of elections during the period from
2000 to 2015 show clientelism was an important feature despite allusions to ideologies of liberation and anti-
imperialism, human rights and democracy by respective contending parties. Some of the key resources that
featured during election campaigns included access to land (in the 2000 and 2002 and 2005 elections), to food
in the (2002 election), to jobs and livelihood opportunities (in the 2008 election), to mining opportunities and
informal economy as well as credit and housing stands (in the 2013 election).
When a government lacks resources to deliver the 'development goods' necessary to satisfy mass
expectations, popular disappointment exerts pressure on faction leaders to intensify their demands for an
increased share of resources for their region or support base (ibid.). Those who cannot not deliver are
replaced. For example, during the 2000 and 2008 elections, a considerable number of ruling party
candidates were thrown out for failure to meet the socio-economic expectations of the electorate.
Incumbent parties often draw upon public resources to gain electoral advantage. ZANU-PF has amassed
considerable experience in how state resources can be pro tably used to gain electoral advantage. It has
used old-fashioned clientelism especially in rural areas where traditional chiefs represent an important
pillar of authority. Chiefs are conduits of public resources to rural constituencies and are key recipients of
public resources for distribution at local level. These resources range from land, agricultural inputs, food to
infrastructure and various services that bind local constituents to them. This explains why chiefs and
other local elites are viewed as crucial gatekeepers in the electoral and development processes. When an
incumbent bloats their conditions of service (through salaries, vehicles and electri cation) this is another
form of solidifying clientelism.
There have been opportunities for partisan approaches to the allocation of public resources such as land,
inputs, food and other resources before and during election processes (Zamchiya, 2014; Mawowa, 2014).
The incumbent party has often highlighted that party membership is an important criterion for eligibility
of access to the resources. While ruling party members were provided agricultural input support, ordinary
villagers with weak political in uence were abandoned with no access to agricultural inputs and
marketing opportunities (HRW, 2002).
During the 2008 election campaign, the RBZ distributed farm implements prompting a complaint by
Tendai Biti, an opposition leader, that: 'two weeks before the election, the RBZ is aiding ZANU-PF to buy
votes through the distribution of tractors and farm implements' (as quoted in Zamchiya, 2014). This
distribution was against the letter and spirit of the Electoral Act that prohibits such partisan exploitation
of public resources during an election campaign. The dangling of food aid as a carrot during elections is
another corrupt practice especially in food de cit provinces such as Matabeleland and Masvingo
provinces (Solidarity Peace Trust, 2006). In addition, the control of access to natural resources is another
mechanism whereby an incumbent party uses patronage to extend and consolidate its electoral base. For
instance, this patronage was skillfully deployed by ZANU-PF during the 2013 election campaign when
diamond revenues were converted into considerable cash that facilitated the purchase of campaign
equipment (Global Witness, 2012; 2014). The phenomenal growth of small-scale artisanal mining (ASM)
during the period under review (2000-2015) witnessed up to 500 000 operators involved in the sector.
According to one analyst:
“associating this sector only with informality and casting it as a survival strategy for the poor is clearly
inadequate in the Zimbabwean context as senior civil servants, ZANU-PF politicians and military gures play a
critical role in it. ASM should be conceptualized as part of the development, sustenance and reproduction of a
patronage system controlled by those with state and/or party positions”
(Mawowa, 2014:922).
There was pervasive corruption in this mining sector but it was allegedly tolerated and even abetted by
state officials and the police; access to the sector by hundreds of thousands of participants boosted the
electoral base of the party that dispensed patronage and protection (ibid.).


Continued...
In sum, the emergence of patronage economics linked to ZANU-PF control should be viewed as partly a
historically grounded state-making project (Alexander et.al., 2014). Over the GNU period, ZANU-PF
capitalized on control over land to consolidate its power in rural resettlement areas and the countryside
more broadly, and used its control over peri-urban land to build support and control in the towns.
The reproduction of political and economic power requires both clientelist patronage and direct
manipulative intervention in the electoral process. The intervention was visible at key stages of the
delimitation of constituencies, voter registration and counting of ballots. A constant theme in most
reports was that of allegations of tampering with these stages of the electoral process during the 2000,
2002, 2005 and 2008 polls (Masunungure, 2009). Intimidation and violence often marred the electoral
process further (Sachikonye, 2011), and a combination of these manipulative strategies skewed the
ground in favour of the incumbent party.
The 2008 election debacle threatened the power base of the incumbent party but also other power
centres in the state. There was a systemic shock resulting from the strong electoral showing of the
opposition parties during that election, which explains the swift and concerned response of the entire
state apparatus that used various resources and strategies including political violence. The shock related
to the threat posed by the election outcome to the functioning of networks for systemic corruption that
had been thriving since the beginning of the decade. It was, therefore, scarcely surprising that key
branches of the state, the military, police and intelligence played an active part during the presidential
run-off election in July 2008 (Masunungure, 2009).
Although the 2013 election campaign was more peaceful, the groundwork for it included corrupt
recourse to use of public resources to the advantage of the incumbent party. State media was
manipulated in brazen ways through disproportionate award of airtime to the ruling party. Other state
resources at central and local levels were used to maximum advantage by the governing party. As we saw
above, allegations of opaque sources of external donations were made as the ruling party showed that it
had considerable campaign resources that could not be met from the annual subvention that it received
from Parliament.
This section closes with a reiteration of the linkages between corruption, patronage and reproduction of
political and economic power. Not all patronage amounts to corruption if it does not violate the existing
legal framework. But the interconnections between them are close especially in instances of political
corruption as observed earlier. Corruption and patronage can lead to stable conditions in which the ruling
elite can be reproduced in economic and political terms. In conditions of sustained accumulation, the
growth of the economy and middle and working classes could result in suitable conditions for such a
stable process of reproduction and consolidation.
However, where conditions for accumulation are either weak or non-existent, political and economic
reproduction processes become unstable. An example of such conditions would be when corruption and
patronage degenerate into factionalism within the ruling party and elites. At the heart of such
factionalism would be intense competition over limited resources. Clientelism promotes a form of
factional competition that encourages the plundering of the state because:
“the intensity which ethnicity gives to factional competition tends to make questions about the entitlements of
the group the only issue in which factions are interested – to the exclusion of broader questions concerning the
efficacy of the overall political system or stability of the state” (Szeftel, 2000:437).

If faction leaders and supporters are disappointed by the results of their efforts to appropriate public
resources, they are likely to intensify their efforts to appropriate spoils regardless of the consequences. Of
interest in the Zimbabwean context is the growth of intense factionalism in both ruling and opposition
parties. In ZANU-PF, there are both economic and political drivers of factionalism. Originally, the Mujuru
and Mnangagwa factions thrived on competition for economic resources within the state and private
sector, and sought to use political power to protect and consolidate those resources they had secured for
their faction members. The expulsion of the Mujuru faction in 2014 was an indication of irreconcilable
ambitions between the two sides and the entry of an equally ambitious faction allegedly grouped around
Grace Mugabe whose rise to senior party position was meteoric. As state resources remain limited and
economic growth continues to be sluggish, the motivation for intense competition between factions will
remain high; and the uncertainty regarding presidential succession will continue to fuel inter-factional
rivalries.
Factionalism in opposition parties often has short-term political objectives. However, it can be
debilitating. It has weakened the Zimbabwe opposition parties in their contest with ZANU-PF while
making their access to state resources and use of patronage more remote as long as they remain out of
power. At the same time, the conditions for reproduction of political and economic power remain shaky in
the absence of sustained accumulation and growth.
Good Practices in Eradicating Corruption

This contribution has argued that systemic corruption has become deep-seated in Zimbabwe's body
politic and economy. The process of its build-up was gradual from the 1980s into the 1990s, becoming
more pervasive between 2000 and the present. Consequently, due to its pervasiveness, a major risk is that
corruption has now become a new 'normal' to which citizens and corporations have adjusted with
cynicism (Interview with a Researcher, January 2016). The prospects for its eradication have become more
difficult and bleak unless lessons from around the world are learned, and learned quickly.
There are examples of countries that once experienced the scourge of corruption, but fought it
tenaciously and eradicated its foundations. Their experience of 'good practices' in combatting corruption
is worth highlighting in a discussion of recommendations that should be considered in the Zimbabwean
case in the next section.
Botswana has been consistently ranked as one of the least corrupt countries in the past two decades. Its
government is committed to “zero tolerance” of corruption on the resolve that corrupt practices should
remain a 'high-risk low-return undertaking' (Botswana Government, 2016). The institutional framework for
anti-corruption was strengthened with the setting up of the Directorate of Corruption and Economic
Crime (DCEC) in 1994. The DCEC has powers to investigate corruption cases and to implement
preventative strategies as well as carry out public education on the issue. Its Director reports directly to
the President, with decisions on prosecution taken by the Attorney General, a position constitutionally
independent of government.
Other oversight institutions that contribute to the anti-corruption ght are the Public Procurement and
Asset Disposal Board (PPADB), the Competition Authority and the Financial Intelligence Agency. As an
upper middle-income country, the increase in general prosperity and relatively well-paid civil service
combined to limit the extent of corruption. In 2013, Botswana was ranked by Transparency International
(TI) as less corrupt than many countries in Europe such as Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece (ibid).
Another often-cited case of 'good practice' is post-independence Singapore. It made a decisive shift from
high levels of corruption to very low levels; made possible through:


Continued...
Ÿ Determination and commitment to ght the scourge of corruption from the government and
leadership;
Ÿ Strong anti-corruption strategies focusing on effective laws, an independent judiciary and strong
enforcement;
Ÿ Robust anti-corrupt institutions under the aegis of Corrupt Practices Investigations Bureau (CPIB) and
Ÿ Reduced corrupt incentives by providing good remuneration, bonuses and working conditions that
are conducive to honest work by both politicians and public servants (UNECA, 2015:20).
Similarly, Hong Kong represents a 'good practice' case. It overcame the pervasive corruption of the 1960s
and 1970s through strong government commitment exempli ed in the setting up of an Independent
Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) and harmonized and effective strategies against corruption
including investigation, prevention and community education. Like in Singapore, a successful ght
against corruption required adequately funded anti-corruption institutions with well-remunerated staff
(UNECA, 2015:20).
Conclusion and Recommendations

In Zimbabwe, there has been no shortage of speci c and relevant recommendations in how to tackle
corruption. Both Government and private sector institutions have made recommendations, but what has
been conspicuously missing is the commitment and tenacity to implement them. The following set of
recommendations feature highly in the discourse on anti-corruption and although they are not presented
in a hierarchical order, an anti-corruption strategy should include these approaches and measures: -
Political Will and Strong Leadership

There should be determined political will in government and the private sector to provide strong
leadership to combat corruption. If there is no political will and leadership, the anti-corruption ght will
remain empty rhetoric. This has been the destiny of anti-corruption campaigns in many developing
countries, and Zimbabwe currently falls into this category of countries.
Follow up on Reports, Policy and Law

Each year a comprehensive report on nancial improprieties in government ministries and parastatals is
compiled by the Comptroller and Auditor General. The report carries detail of speci c transgressions that
should be recti ed, but there has been little follow-up on the ndings and recommendations of those
reports. This should change. Effective anti-corruption strategies require a vigorous follow-up on policy
decisions and recommendations. For instance, the criminalization of corruption is a priority. Substantive
deterrent penalties should be exacted against those who engage in corruption. The present bias of giving
the 'big sh' light penalties, and the 'small sh' heavier sentences should be removed. However, it is not
sufficient for the criminal law to search for bad apples and punish them (Ross-Ackerman, 1999:226). The
goal of such prosecutions is to attract notice and public notice, not solve the underlying problem. Anti-
corruption laws can only provide a framework for more important structural reforms.
Review Institutional and Regulatory Frameworks

Tax and customs revenues may be far below the level needed to carry out basic government services in
Zimbabwe, and the pattern of payments may be inequitable due to payoffs. The response should be to
simplify tax laws to reduce bureaucratic discretion and to reorganize the bureaucracy to improve
oversight (Ross-Ackerman, 1999:227). Where regulation of business is complex, time-consuming and
intrusive, there should be a critical review of regulatory laws to see which laws can be eliminated,
simpli ed or supported with improved enforcement.

The institutional mandate and regulatory capacity of some of the institutions that deal with one form of
corruption or another are vague and weak. Institutions such as Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) and
Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZAAC) need to have their enforcement mechanisms
strengthened ('sharp teeth') if they are to become more effective in combating corruption in their speci c
areas of mandate. Similarly, codes of conduct such as the Electoral Code should be strengthened to deal
with issues of access to public resources during election campaigns.
Review of Conditions of Service in key Institutions

Poor conditions of service, especially relatively low salaries, were identi ed as one factor behind the
soliciting of bribes and kickbacks by public officials. When these are raised to become competitive, their
incentive to engage in corruption is supposed to be reduced. In key institutions such as the Zimbabwe
Revenue Authority (ZIMRA), ZEC, Police, the Judiciary and Immigration, conditions of service should be
improved (in addition to the enforcement of provisions recommended in this section). In particular, the
investigations sections should be independent and adequately remunerated.
Accountability of Parties and Civil Society Organizations

There should be a mechanism to ensure transparency and accountability for political parties and civil
society organizations. Although they are often vocal in their denunciation of corrupt practices, they are
not always clean themselves. Auditing of these organizations by non-partisan professional institutions to
ensure probity in the use of their resources would be useful for the credibility and transparency of the
political and electoral processes, and in their lobbying and advocacy activities.
Disclosure by Parties, Elected Officers and Senior Officers

There should be legal provisions that require parties to disclose their sources of campaign nance and
elected officials to state their assets on taking up and leaving office. Disclosure of assets would be in the
public interest to the extent that citizens can judge if there has been abuse of office through
accumulation of assets beyond what was possible through official remuneration. If enforced, the
disclosure requirement would go some way in deterring politicians, councilors and other public officers
from abuse of office through shady accumulation fuelled by corruption.
Protection of Whistle blowers on corruption

Reporting acts of corruption is a highly risky enterprise in an organization or community. There needs to
be legislation that provides whistle-blowers with protection from culprits and any consequences that may
arise. Citizens should be informed about this protection mechanism.
Anti-Corruption awareness campaigns

There should be efforts to build a strong anti-corruption movement that draws citizens, CSOs and other
sectors in society. The movement together with the private sector should work closely with government
to spread awareness of the cost and other consequences of corruption on society and the economy.
Amongst others, the media could play a useful role in raising awareness through its reporting and
commentary. A vital step in such a campaign would be to survey the public to nd out how corruption
affects their daily lives. This provides a way to set priorities that re ect popular grievances (Ross-
Ackerman, 1999:227). However, the survey evidence may not be sufficient, as the corruption that is most
visible to the population may not be doing the most harm. A second emphasis should be on high-level
corruption in public sector contracting, privatizations and concessions that introduce serious economic
distortions and undermine the scal health of the state (ibid.).
Awards for Good Corporate Governance and Anti-corruption

It would be useful to set up awards for institutions in the public and private sectors that excel in anti-
corruption efforts. They would be showing by example how corruption can be reduced or eradicated in
society and economy. In South Korea, they have drawn up an Integrity Perception Index (IPC) under which
citizens are surveyed on what they think of the performance of public institutions in issuing licenses and
permits, control, supervisory tasks, use and management of government subsidies. The exercise has
improved service delivery in that country as public institutions give due attention to the index and strive
to improve their rankings through deliberate efforts in addressing integrity challenges. Introducing a
national integrity perception index in Zimbabwe along similar lines could spur public and private
institutions to avoid corruption so as to improve their reputation and brands.

Continued...
Strong Partnership in Anti-Corruption Strategies

There should be stronger coherence in anti-corruption strategies. Often there tends to be a silo approach
by different branches of the state and in the private sector. The Executive branch and Parliament need to
work more closely especially given the increased active role by portfolio committees including the Public
Accounts committee in the latter institution (interview with chair of a Parliamentary Committee, January,
2016). Together with the Judiciary and the Commissions such as the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption
Commission (ZAAC) and the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) they would constitute a formidable
front against corruption provided they work closely together.
Post-note
None of the above Recommendations, on their own, can lead to the overcoming of corruption in
Zimbabwe's society and economy. The only sustained long-term effect on political corruption and
clientelism is likely to come from economic development which is likely to result in a growing scal
capacity of the state to respond to political demands in open and transparent ways. Development is also
likely to lead to a moderation of the demands coming from competing groups demanding redistribution
so that economic viability is disrupted to a lesser extent over time.
Endnotes
1. “It might be you or a group of people assigned to negotiate with the other side we want to work with, be it in
building a bridge or constructing roads, you then go and demand a cut before the construction is even done..
They say if the actual cost is $10 million, they peg it at $13 million and tell the Chinese that the project costs
have risen yet the $3 million will be theirs for sharing…” (President Mugabe as quoted in December 2015. This
was in reference to tendency of government bureaucrats to solicit kickbacks when negotiating terms of state
projects).
2. The corruption scandals include those at the ZISCO steel company, Zimbabwe United Passenger Company
(ZUPCO) bus company, National Oil Company of Zimbabwe (NOCZIM), and the Harare Airport Extension
scandal to mention a few.

63
Understanding Corruption
in Social Service Delivery in
Zimbabwe: Case Studiess
from the Local Government
Sector
09 Understanding Corruption in Social Service Delivery in

Zimbabwe: Case Studies from the Local
Government Sector Sandra Bhatasara
Introduction
Corruption remains a key governance and development challenge confronting Zimbabwe. This chapter
explores issues around how corruption in the social sector has negatively affected social development
using the local government sector as an example. Local government, especially the urban sub-sector, is
the vehicle through which central government delivers social services such as water, sanitation, housing
and education to most citizens of Zimbabwe; but these local authorities have of late become notorious for
poor service delivery and 'hyper corruption' (Wafawarova 2011), hence the focus on them in this chapter.
The discussion focuses on the nature of corruption in social service provision, how legislative, institutional
and policy frameworks are implicated in corruption, the social costs of corruption, and possible solutions
to address corruption in Zimbabwe. The study is primarily based on a critical and re ective review of
literature – which incorporated perspectives of citizens, especially reports by Residents Associations, TIZ
(e.g. the Youth and Corruption baseline report), case studies on various cities/towns, and media sources
that quoted citizens' perspectives.
Background to the Study

The provision of social services in Zimbabwe has been negatively affected by the protracted economic
crisis that the country has suffered since the beginning of 2000. The crisis has resulted in a signi cant
decline in the capability of both central and local governments to deliver essential services such as
housing, water and sewer reticulation, refuse removal, street lighting, primary health, and basic education
(Government of Zimbabwe 2010; Kamete 2009: Musekiwa et al. 2013). Between 2000 and 2008, Zimbabwe
experienced severe macro-economic challenges, with in ation reaching an all-time high of 230,000,000%
per annum in July 2008 (Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe 2011). The height of the crisis was in 2008-09 when
drinking water of low quality caused a cholera epidemic that coincided with a collapsed health delivery
system, leading to '98,592 reported cases and 4,288 deaths' (Government of Zimbabwe 2010:36).
Although the socio-economic crisis subsided somewhat in 2009 following the inauguration of an inclusive
government, the recovery in basic services has taken a long time, and local authorities still face service
delivery de cits (Musekiwa and Chatiza 2015, Chatiza et al. 2013); especially after the debt-write off by
central government in the run-up to elections in 2013.
Furthermore, local government authorities are plagued by a lack of resources such as skilled staff and
nancial management systems. These problems provide incentives and opportunities for corruption
(Chene 2015). Nonetheless, the number of studies that focus speci cally on corruption in the provision of
social services in the country is inadequate. Most studies (see Makochekanwa and Kwaramba 2010;
Mundawarara and Mapanda 2010; Bonga et al. 2015) dwell on the daunting challenges faced by various
social sectors particularly from the early 2000s, which although not directly related to corruption, may be
a consequence of the high levels of corruption pervading the country. There are also only a few sources
systematically analysing corruption at the local level in Zimbabwe. Despite such gaps, some case studies
(see Sithole 2013; Combined Harare Residents Association [CHRA] 2014; Mukonza 2013) in speci c
municipalities can be used to gain a better understanding of the challenges and risks of corruption at the
local level. In this context, this chapter seeks to:

Understanding Corruption in Social Service

Delivery in Zimbabwe: Case Studies from the
Local Government Sector
Continued...
Ÿ Establish the dimensions and dynamics of corruption in social service delivery in local government
sector;
Ÿ Review existing legislation, policies and institutional frameworks that govern local government;
highlighting their strengths and loopholes in promoting and preventing corruption;
Ÿ Examine the social costs of corruption;
Ÿ Proffer recommendations for possible reforms that would provide greater transparency and
accountability in local government service delivery as a whole.
Local Government Structure and Social Service Delivery

The study uses the local government sector as an entry point. Therefore, the study is not about corruption
in the local government sector, and the selection of the sector is just a methodological consideration.
Based on relevant legislation and practice, Zimbabwe's local government exists to provide, maintain and
expand public goods and services within the areas under their control. Zimbabwe's local government
sector is a relatively well- established one and consists of 92 Councils (60 rural and 32 urban) and a
Ministry with national, provincial and district presence (Chatiza et al. 2013). The sector includes a Ministry
responsible for local government, a parliamentary portfolio committee for local government, a provincial
and metropolitan tier as well as urban, and rural local authorities. The Ministry responsible for local
government has officials at provincial and local level while 10 Ministers of State responsible for Provincial
Affairs (Provincial Governors until the 2013 Constitution) also make up a visible cog at provincial and
metropolitan tiers. Under the Constitution that prevailed until 2013, local authorities were established in
terms of Acts of Parliament (the Urban Councils Act, 29:15 and Rural District Councils Act, 29:13) and their
operations were equally regulated by sector and allied legislation. Other relevant sector legislation
includes the Regional, Town and Country Planning Act, the Traditional Leaders Act, the Communal Lands
Act and the Provincial Councils and Administration Act while allied legislation includes mining, water,
environment, forestry and related instruments (Musekiwa and Chatiza 2015; Chatiza et al. 2013).
The 2013 constitution provides for local government and de nes a devolved governance framework.
Section 3 (2) (i) the constitution recognises devolution and decentralisation of governmental power and
functions as one of the principles of good governance. Section 5c de nes provincial and local authorities
as a tier of government and states that Councils represent and manage affairs of the people. Section 8:1
de nes the national vision of '…a sustainable, just, free and democratic society in which people enjoy
prosperous, happy and ful lling lives', which shapes the focus of governance (Government of Zimbabwe
2013).1 Sections 274:1 and 275:1 confers on Councils the power to govern, on own initiative. Also, the
Constitution of Zimbabwe (2013) provides for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights that are pertinent to
social service delivery. They include the right to education (Section 75), the right to health care (Section
76), right to food and water (Section 77) and environmental rights (Section 73).
Local governments, like other public institutions, are established to aggregate citizens' capacities and
deploy them to address public affairs. The conceptualization of services is in relation to the functions of
local authorities and speci cally applies to roads, education, health, water and sanitation, land and
housing services. From a human rights perspective (Ratsauka 2015), social service delivery includes the
following:
1 Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No. 20) Act 2013

a) Construction and maintenance of drains, sewers, bridges, parking and street lighting – right to
security/health/life
b) Provision of parks, public places, recreation grounds and open spaces – right to leisure / clean air
c) Water for domestic and commercial areas – the right to clean water/adequate standard of life
d) Hospitals, clinics, ambulances, maternity and child welfare – the right to health
e) Schools and libraries – right to education
f) Provision of housing and public transport facilities as well as refuse collection – right to shelter/health, etc.
Service delivery has been poor due to a variety of reasons, including socio-economic and institutional
challenges. Historically, local government authorities in Zimbabwe received minimal scal transfers from
central government and met most of their expenditure from local revenue (Musekiwa and Chatiza 2015).
However, after the post-2000 economic and political challenges and international isolation, reduced
central government and local authority ability to leverage external nance at a time when the economy
was weak led to a dramatic decline in local revenues (ibid).
Conceptualizing Corruption in Social Services Delivery

Corruption has many contested de nitions, but for purposes of this study we have utilized a de nition
that is broad enough and contextualized enough to capture the multifaceted and complex nature of
corruption. An understanding of the de nition's various facets is necessary for effective management and
control of corruption (Clammer, 2012).
This chapter regards contextualizing corruption de nitions as critical if it is to be understood in its correct
space. Transparency International (TI 2012) de nes corruption as the abuse of public or entrusted power
for private gain. Other scholars conceive corruption as mis-performance or neglect of a recognized duty or
unwarranted use of power with the motive of gaining some advantage directly for personal gain (Alatas
1990). In Africa, for instance, Olivier de Sardan (1999) argues that the notion of corruption may be
broadened into what may be termed a 'corruption complex' to include nepotism, abuse of power,
embezzlement and various forms of misappropriation, in uence-peddling, prevarication, insider trading,
and abuse of the public purse. In Zimbabwe, the general tendency is to describe these as corrupt
practices. For instance, Bonga et al. (2015) observe that corruption is found in the award of contracts,
promotion of staff, dispensation of justice, and misuse of public offices, positions, and privileges and
embezzlement of public funds. In addition, the word corruption is referred to in the 1st schedule of the
Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission Act [9.22]; with the understanding being derived from offences
related to: “giving or receiving a bribe as an inducement or reward; corruptly using a false document; the
intentional non-disclosure of/or concealment of a transaction from one principal in order to deceive; the
deceitful non-disclosure or concealment from one principal of a personal interest in a transaction; criminal
abuse of power by a public officer”.
Notwithstanding the above de nitions (and the context in which they are used), what resonates with this
paper's conception of corruption in most of the de nitions is the abuse of power; and it is from this
vantage point that this chapter maps a sociological understanding of corruption and draws from Michel
Foucault's conceptualization of power. From this Foucauldian perspective, the study of power should:
begin from below, in the heterogeneous and dispersed microphysics of power; explore speci c forms
of its exercise in different institutional sites, and; consider how, if at all, these are linked to broader and
more persistent societal con gurations (Jessop 2006). Power is everywhere and is not a possession but a
relational a strategy deployed for accumulation even at the most basic level (Foucault, 1980). As such, if
power is relational corruption is social rather than an individual phenomenon, having not only political
origins and impacts but social ones as well. Consistently, corruption is interwoven in all facets of life (TIZ
2014). Similarly, it is trans-systemic and inherent in all social systems (Alatas 1990). Thus, corruption is a
complex social phenomenon, which in addition to political and economic factors, has also deeply
rooted cultural causes and social traditions which largely determine its existence and extent (Bonga et al.
2015).


Continued...
Corruption is, therefore, not limited to one group/class. Neither is it a preserve of the elite or politicians,
but is embedded in everyday practices. It is also recognized that power circulates through networks rather
than being applied at particular points (Foucault 1979); and is a relationship rather than an entity; it ows
in multiple directions. Hence it is possible to locate the social relationships, social institutions and social
networks of corruption (Chiweshe 2015) – leading to the argument that 'corruption can be seen not so
much as an objective practice existing in a vacuum, but as a social act whose meaning needs to be
understood with reference to social relationships' (Harrison 2006: 20).
The chapter, therefore, argues that the problem of corruption in the delivery of and access to social
services is about power. The study analyses the various areas where corruption comes into play, the
different types of social actors involved and the strategies deployed to deliver and access social services in
a corrupt manner. The chapter also looks at the social impacts of corruption and how it is socially
reproduced. The greater the corruption, the more it becomes engrained in social habits (i.e. the more
deeply it becomes inscribed in the 'moral economy') and the easier it is to be passed on from one
generation to the next. In effect, the reproduction of corruption produces a kind of 'corruption culture'
that becomes permanent in society.
Corruption in the Local Government Sector

Corruption in the local government sector is not a recent phenomenon. Taking the City of Harare as an
example, Solomon Tawengwa was involved in gross mismanagement of rate- payers' money and land
scandals in the late 1990s. CHRA (2004) reported that the ZANU-PF led Council had been for years
characterised by opaque practices, nepotism and corruption that went unpunished. In 2006, the
Makwavarara-led Commission running the City was also involved in a series of highly irregular
expenditure and characterized by a lack of accountability.2 Again in 2011, it was reported that Harare's
worst problem was corruption (from the municipal police who clamp wrongly parked vehicles only to be
bribed to release them, to business managers running down once-viable enterprises like Rufaro
3
Marketing). Likewise, former ZANU-PF mayor, Tony Gara, gave his own company a contract to collect
garbage without going to tender and against all ethical norms (ibid). The MDC-led Councils have also
deepened the crisis of corruption. In 2010, an MDC probe team raised corruption allegations against
Mutare city fathers; In 2011, MDC-T councillors in Victoria Falls were accused of politicising council
business, whilst mayors in Bindura and Chinhoyi were suspended and; In 2012, the Mutare mayor was
accused of misconduct by the then Minister Ignatius Chombo. Evidently, corruption in the local
government sector has evolved over time and with adverse consequences for social service provision and
society development as a whole.
Overview of Everyday Corruption in the Local Government Sector

Everyday corrupt tendencies and practices in the local government sector take many forms as shown in
the list below:
2 http://www.zimbabwesituation.com/old/apr27b_2006.html
3 http://www.thezimbabwean.co/2011/06/harare-where-did-the-sunshine/

Ÿ Central government, unscrupulous land barons (with backing from ZANU-PF) and some council officials
implicated in Harare land scandals and demolitions.
Ÿ Citizens can be asked for bribes to circumvent complex 4 processes or secure access to services (Chene, 2015).
Ÿ In Harare and Masvingo, residents complained about rampant corruption in the housing departments,
claiming that those on the waiting lists had to pay bribes in order to receive preferential treatment in the
allocation of houses (Murimoga and Musinga 2014).
Ÿ Massive corruption and nepotism were unearthed at the Chiredzi Town Council in the allocation of about
700 stands.
Ÿ In the city of5 Gweru, Sithole (2013) noted that the forms of corruption cited by the respondents included
bribery, embezzlement, nepotism and misuse of council assets, selling of council assets like stands and
vehicles to some council officials at very low values.
Ÿ Bribing of council workers for illegal water reconnections in many of the cities, with Gweru and Harare cited
by Sithole (2013).
Ÿ The bribing of local councillors for illegal water connections is widespread (Sithole 2013).
In these instances, council officials generally use their power to either provide or withhold a service until
residents pay a bribe. This highlights how power in speci c interactions is exercised by those in positions
of authority in order to in uence the conduct of others (Chiweshe 2015).
The scourge of corruption exists in all places and spaces, just like power. Corruption in the education
service delivery chain for instance, occurs during school planning and management, student admissions,
examinations, as well as dealing with teacher management and professional conduct (Chene 2012). In
human resources and recruitment, the images of well-paid Municipal executives alongside declining
service provision in the public authorities are in the public domain (Mundawarara and Mapanda 2010).
Planning services have also experienced delays caused by inefficiency and corruption, actual and
perceived (Chatiza et al. 2013). In 2015, the local government permanent secretary admitted that the
Ministry had thousands of unquali ed personnel who were corruptly employed in councils across the
country.6
In a recent report, it was noted that City of Harare allegedly bought US$ 50 000 worth of Geographical
Information System (GIS) gadgets from South Africa without going to tender.7 In Gweru, the District
Administrator (DA) highlighted the existence of gross mis-management of Council funds, with the council
being deprived of money that it could use to fund and improve its service delivery projects. As a result,
the costs of public services are in ated to make up for the mismanaged funds (Sithole 2013).
Corruption as a social practice implicates many actors. In general, the players in social service delivery
corruption are the general public, politicians, bureaucrats and rms. The most commonly identi ed
perpetrators of corruption include tax and revenue collectors the administrative head, the councillors, and
even the Minister of Local Government, Rural and Urban Development (Manyukwe 2010). These are
actors from both MDC and ZANU PF political parties.
Service delivery in MDC-T dominated councils has gone haywire — with residents going for months
without water.8 In Gweru and Mutare MDC run Councils, police and the judiciary, politicians, teachers and
lecturers as well as nurses and doctors (Bonga et al. 2015). In the local government sector, a multiplicity of
actors (provincial administrators, district administrators and ministers of state) are engaged in corruption.
At some point, corruption in Chitungwiza Municipality implicated the Town Clerk who is condemning
reports on corruption and mismanagement have emerged. However, a number of corruption cases have
mostly implicated the former ZANU-PF Minister Ignatius Chombo as the main culprit, although the cases
differ. The role of the former Minister of Local Government, Public Works and Urban Development Hon.
Ignatius Chombo (2000 – 2015) in producing, reproducing and bequeathing a legacy of corruption has
been documented extensively. Arguably, this is a clear case of how power is used as a strategy for
accumulation by government officials. Jonga (2013) described him as a 'political bandit', who sought to
serve his own interests at the expense of rural and urban communities. During his tenure, service delivery
declined to an all-time low as evidenced by the poor state of roads, erratic water supply situations,
uncollected garbage, and other poor services.
4 http://www.theindependent.co.zw/2016/02/05/demolitions-sign-of-gross-corruption/
5 http://www.thezimbabwean.co/2014/07/chiredzi-council-tackles-corruption-nepotism/
6 http://allafrica.com/stories/201510280266.html
7 http://www.herald.co.zw/city-council-flouts-tender-procedures/
8 http://www.financialgazette.co.zw/1mdc-t-councils-have-equally-failed/


Continued...
The mushrooming of illegal settlements in different cities and towns also occurred under Chombo's
watch; and history will also remember him as the minister who presided over Operation Murambatsvina in
2005, which left more than 700 000 homeless, while 2,4 million were affected indirectly (see United
Nations reports).9 Many illegal land deals took place when unelected commissions appointed by Chombo
were in office (see table below summarizing some of the perceptions that support this view that the
former minister was a prominent actor in shaping how corruption evolved in the local government sector
between 2000 and 2015).
Table : Actors in corrupt practices and engagements
9
10

The above list of irregular deals should, however, not exonerate the role of general citizens in fuelling
corruption. Citizens are neither passive recipients of social services nor are they powerless. The payment of
bribes for water connection is sometimes initiated by citizens themselves. In its ndings on corruption in
Chitungwiza Municipality, a committee from the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) concluded that
“corruption is generally rampant and footloose” (MDC, 2010). It is located along the whole chain of service
provision hence implicating citizens as well. Hardoon and Heinrich (2011) reported that 52% of
Zimbabweans have paid a bribe to a service provider – hence it is not uncommon for parents to make
informal payments to access education services that are supposed to be free of charge (Tizora 2009).
Other corrupt practices in accessing education include paying teachers and headmasters fees of as high
as US$200 for them to write examinations on behalf of other people (Chene 2015; Mapira and Matikiti
2012; Togongara, 2013). Sex can also be used as payment by young women to get good grades, pass an
exam, or be admitted to educational programmes (Mapira and Matikiti 2012; TIZ 2014).
Nepotism is another practice that shows that residents are active social actors. It is now difficult for one to
access some social services unless a certain relationship exists. These relationships allow people to avoid
long queues to access housing (Chiweshe 2015) and other services such as water and education. Hence
citizens exercise power by making claims to relations or other people that can in uence decisions in their
favor. Major corruption scandals in the local government sector: the cases of Harare and Chitungwiza City
Councils
Corruption remains a key governance challenge faced by local governments seeking to deliver services
effectively the world over. Tackling corruption can, however, help Local Authorities become more effective
service delivery vehicles. The cases from Chitungwiza (Table 2) and Harare (Table 3) demonstrate some of
the major housing, land, and other corruption scandals in the recent past.
Table 2: Summary of Corruption in Chitungwiza


Continued...
Table 3 : Summary of Corruption in Harare City Council

The cases tabulated above (Table 3 and Table 4) show legislative power sometimes being used by the
Minister to protect sectional interests. Tendencies of political banditry are also evident because the
Minister's approach subverted legally elected urban councils and replaced them with hand-picked
councillors and commissioners (Jonga 2013). The Minister unilaterally usurped the power of the voters
and urban councils. There are no checks and balances that limit the power and undue in uences of a
sitting Minister of Local Government, Urban and Rural Development within local authorities, hence the
string of corruption cases in land deals and the awarding of major contracts for road construction. One
local government expert, Kudzai Chatiza, further noted that Central government has for the past 15 years
been disabled by a focus on political control of councils and destabilizing those controlled by opposition
political parties to be effective at holding councils to account. In some cases, what we call
mismanagement was/is sanctioned by central government.10
10


Continued...
What gives rise to corruption?

The economic crisis, political instability and the calibre of leadership in Zimbabwe are important when
seeking to understand why corruption in general and in the local government sector has become
pervasive. Arguably, political leaders have been implicated in the 'institutionalization' of corruption. There
are claims that President Robert Mugabe institutionalized corruption when he pardoned government
ministers implicated in the Willowgate scandal in the late 1980s.11 Amongst those top leaders pardoned
included the then Local Government Minister, Enos Chikowore. One lesson was drawn from this: “It
dawned upon those in government that they too, could loot national resources and get President
Mugabe's protection from prosecution” (ibid). Therefore, the failure by the Head of State to take stern
measures against corrupt elements started breeding corruption within other government circles and the
12
corruption later spread to private institutions. This also marked the progressive disintegration of the
national moral bre (ibid). Since then, local authorities have been reduced into feeding troughs for
politicians and top council officials, many of whom have presided over the infrastructural collapse of the
cities and towns.13
The collapse of the economy after 2000 resulted in a decline of resources for public services and
administration. Low salaries in Zimbabwe's bloated public service, inefficient bureaucracy and the opacity
of the overall regulatory environment fuel bureaucratic corruption. The government is unable to control
and monitor the action of civil servants and business; and poor remuneration has made it easier to bribe
poorly-paid civil servants (Bonga et al. 2015). This is not peculiar to Zimbabwe. In Africa in general, the
'under-payment' of civil servants has obliged them to look elsewhere for the resources which are no
longer provided in their salaries (Olivier de Sardina, 1999); and as a result corruption is seen as a survival
strategy by government workers (Chiweshe 2015). The TIZ Youth and Corruption Baseline (2014) also
revealed that youths engaged in corrupt activities due to poverty and unemployment.
Apart from the above, the most common reasons for paying a bribe for a service in Zimbabwe is to speed
up things and to ensure that one gets services (TIZ Corruption Report 2012). People have a tendency of
resorting to paying bribes due to the complex procedures that they have to go through before they can
get the services that they need without delays (Sithole 2013). People are often simply told, 'sit there while
we try to sort out your problem' and they are made to wait until business hours are over, and then they
are told to come back the next day and the day after that (ibid). This waiting only often ends after a bribe
has been paid. For instance, most departments in local authorities (e.g. the engineering) take long to
approve housing plans and applicants resort to paying bribes to council officials in order to speed up the
approval process.
Non-functioning institutions and poor policies have also been implicated in corruption. For instance,
residents in Chitungwiza expressed concern over the non-implementation of various commissions'
14
ndings that have been instituted by the Minister of Local Government. Other related reasons included
the lack of operationalization of Provincial Councils as well as the slow process of reviewing the local
government legislation in line with the constitution, which requires the decentralisation of service
provision (CHRA 2014). The Zimbabwean Local Government legislation (while it remains misaligned with
the new Constitution) allows the Minister of Local Government, Urban and Rural Development to
intervene in the day-to-day running of local authorities, and this has often been viewed as fuelling
corruption (Sithole 2013).
11
12
13
14

At times officials simply ignore legislative and police frameworks. For instance, the Urban Councils Act
(Chapter 29:15) requires local authorities to audit their nancial statements within 180 days of a particular
nancial year-end to ensure that regular checks can be made. Nonetheless, the Comptroller and Auditor-
General's 2013 Report exposed that nearly 90 percent of Councils are breaching this legal requirement.
Lack of auditing between 2009 and 2013 resulted in local authorities losing over US$50 million through
fake payment receipts and unspeci ed cash withdrawals (ibid).In a related manner, the Poverty Reduction
Forum blamed the absence of public accountability systems for the sharp increase in cases of
mismanagement of resources at public institutions, especially local authorities (ibid). This is further
supported by the following:
Weak monitoring by citizens, local institutions and central government sustains much of the mismanagement.
It grew at a time when councils had access to considerable resources from both local sources and through
government grants. As citizens, our local government literacy is low so we have been unable to follow processes
in our councils closely. Even when audits (e.g. the Harare land audit of 2009/2010) revealed irregularities no
ordinary citizens, local organizations and central government took the matter up. The Councillors involved in
the investigation were harassed out of council and we did not defend them (Chatiza Kudzai).
In addition, there are some MPs, councillors and government bureaucrats who act in a corrupt manner in
order to maximise bene ts during their political term of office as there is no guarantee they will be re-
elected in the next election (Wafawarova 2011). In the city of Gweru, respondents gave reasons like poor
supervisory mechanisms, greed, poor remuneration and lack of motivation as some of the causes for
corruption (ibid). Some local authorities and Ministries always complain of inadequate budgetary
allocations. However, poor water and sewer reticulation systems are a result of the mismanagement of
nances and also prioritising personal incomes over service delivery.15
The Social Costs of Corruption

Certainly, the costs of corruption are not measured just in the amounts of money that are squandered or
in stolen government resources, but in the absence of basic services that could have been provided with
that money and would have improved the lives of families and communities (UN Secretary General 2012).
From a population welfare perspective, corrupt practices increase inequality and perpetuate poverty
(United Nations Economic Commission for Africa 2016). Reduced investment in social services also
disproportionately affects the, poor and perpetuates inequality and poverty whilst administrative
corruption is highly correlated with poverty as poor people have to dispose of their income in order to
access services, thus further limiting social mobility (ibid).
Social sector-speci c studies show that corruption harms poor people more than other groups and diverts
desperately-needed funds from education, healthcare and other public services. For illustration,
corruption in the health sector can be a matter of life and death, especially for poor people in developing
countries (Hussmann 2011), and can have severe consequences for access, quality, equity and
effectiveness of health care services (Chene 2015). Similarly, corruption effectively reduces the resources
available for health, and lowers the quality, equity and effectiveness of health care services, decreases the
volume and increases the cost of services provided (Anti-Corruption Resource Centre 2008).
15 http://www.herald.co.zw/corruption-a-cancer-eating-into-zimbabwe/


Continued...
As resources are drained from health budgets less funding is available to pay salaries and fund operations
and maintenance, leading to de-motivated staff, lower quality of care, and reduced service availability and
use (Lindelow and Sernells 2006). In addition, Biegelman and Biegelman (2010:4) state that “corruption
promoted socio-economic ills such as poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy and resulted in people being
disillusioned by the failures of government”. Corruption causes citizens to stay poor and illiterate, and to
suffer from high infant and child mortality rates, low birth-weight babies; it also causes high dropout
rates in primary schools (see Kaufmann et al. 2008). Bribery also deters the poor from seeking basic
entitlements and other public services; while corruption in the administrative realm results in the unequal
provision of services. This is evidence of how corruption aggravates inequality and injustice. Likewise,
corruption has a negative impact on socio-economic rights as it denies development and a better quality
of life to the most vulnerable members of society (Wafawarova 2011).
In Zimbabwe, corruption in the health sector, for example, compromises service delivery, and this has
endangered the lives of citizens as money, which should be used to nance effective health service
delivery, lines the pockets of some officials. Theft of medical supplies and budget leakages lead to drug
shortages and poor quality services (Chene 2015) while drugs meant to be given for free to patients are
sold to them at high prices, leading to lower utilisation of drugs – often by patients who cannot afford
them (Tizora 2009). There are also reports of drugs being stolen in hospitals thereby exacerbating drug
shortages (Chene 2015).
Corruption in the education sector has devastating impacts. Global Trends, released recently by
Transparency International (TI), cited corruption in education as among the most signi cant barriers to
attaining Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and realising the universal right to education. The
selling of entrance exams in advance in Zimbabwe contributes to the deterioration of learning and
examination standards (Mambo 2012). In addition, corruption, inequitable distribution and misuse of
funds in the education sector may worsen inequality between groups in fractionalised societies and fuel
favouritism of speci c social, ethnic or geographic groups over others, potentially triggering discontent,
protest and social unrest (Miller-Grandvaux 2009). In these situations, parents are forced to hire private
tutors, with high risks of manipulation and distortion of mainstream curricula, making free primary
education prohibitively expensive for poor households (UNESCO 2003).
Speci c to the local government sector in Zimbabwe, Mukonza (2013) reported that corrupt officials in
Chitungwiza Municipality deny the poor in the community access to houses and other opportunities to
participate in the economic development of the municipality. People pay bribes to council officials to get
services to which they have a democratic right, and only those who can afford to pay bribes get services
on time. The result of this is social exclusion for many (Sithole 2013). Corruption reduces the effectiveness
of public administration and impedes a local authority's ability to use its available resources to
progressively attain better service delivery (ibid). For instance, when tenders are awarded to unquali ed or
inadequately quali ed constructors, the result is poor workmanship and buildings of a shorter life. More
so, the demolition of houses (that had been allowed by corrupt officials in the rst place) in Harare mostly
affected impoverished home-seekers, some of whom genuinely thought they were making a lifetime
investment.

The social impacts of corruption are not limited to one age group, class or ethnic group; nor are they the
same across these social categories. As reported by the TIZ Youth and Corruption Baseline (2014),
corruption affected the youths so much because this denied them livelihoods. Young women are more
vulnerable to corruption than their male counterparts, and this has implications for their access to health,
education and justice. Women suffer corruption in two ways, rstly they are victims of bribe corruption
and secondly they suffer sexual extortion,” says the report (ibid). This observation is similar to that made
by Chatiza et al. (2013) who note that the victims of verbal abuse, bribery, corruption, and arrogant denial
of services are normally women, children and poor people seeking social services.
From a gender perspective, corruption increases the burden on women and girls (for instance when
corrupt officials misuse funds for water provision) as women are responsible for fetching water in
households (Chimanikire 2015). Corruption also hits women the hardest because they have to deal with
problems of food security in households and the community at large.17 Paradoxically, the notion of
corruption provokes images of people getting rich, yet the gender-corruption-poverty nexus is very
strong. For instance, poor women pay daily bribes, penalties and other illegal payments to municipal
police to conduct street vending (ibid). For many poor women who survive on street vending, this drains
their already paltry resources and further entrenches their poverty.
Finally, available studies in Zimbabwe argue that corruption has become institutionalized, and it
reproduces itself across generations, breeding a culture of corruption – which has become more socially
acceptable, normative, internalized, and perceived as a way of life (TIZ 2014, Chiweshe 2015). This erodes
the social and moral bre of society as corrupt and dishonest members are rewarded with a good life
while honest and hardworking citizens live modestly (Mukonza 2013). This effectively holds up the corrupt
as role models for youths in society, thus promoting such ill-practices at the expense of virtues such as
honesty and excellence (ibid). Consequently, corruption has since bred a culture of laziness where youths
opt to 'make a quick buck' rather than work to earn a living (TIZ 2014).
Policy Options and Policy Recommendations

Corruption in the local government sector has become endemic and thus eroded the social and moral
bre of society (Chatiza et al. 2013). It is with this in mind that this chapter makes the following
recommendations:
Ÿ The Minister of Local Government, Urban and Rural Development has too much power that needs to be
capped/regulated through checks and balances as provided for in the Constitution and through
Parliament.
Ÿ There is a need to enforce the 'publish what you pay principle' to ensure disclosure and transparency by
local authorities in the use of resources.
Ÿ Strengthening internal processes for accountability should be done in the areas of planning and budgeting,
performance management, public integrity and oversight.
Ÿ There is a need to lobby the government to adopt an Executive Mayoral System to allow mayors to operate
without external interference.
Ÿ Mandatory disclosure/declaration of assets by employees should be enforced as a means to monitor
corrupt accumulation during the course of their employment.
Ÿ The realignment of the Urban Councils Act and other Acts that govern the local government sector with
the Constitution is critical in addressing on-going accountability challenges hence needs to be given serious
attention.
Ÿ Local authorities should be capacitated on e-governance and Information, Communication and
Technology (ICT) to keep track of employees (institute biometric payroll), keep track of revenues and deal
with debt collection.
Ÿ All local authorities in the country must institute anti-corruption strategies.
Ÿ The role of citizens in ghting corruptions needs to be emphasized, for instance, citizens can be capacitated
to conduct social audits.
17 http://www.herald.co.zw/corruption-hits-women-youth-hardest/


Continued...
Ÿ Formal and informal spaces should be created for residents associations, ordinary people, and communities
to claim their rights to social services and information.
Ÿ There is a need for further empirical research on the social costs of corruption and more involvement of the
media to expose corrupt practices.

Conclusion
From the foregoing, it can be seen that corruption is an everyday practice in providing and accessing
social services in the context of the current local government sector. As noted above, corrupt practices by
local government officials range from outing tender procedures, embezzling funds, demanding bribes,
to nepotism. For citizens, especially the poor, it is increasingly difficult to access services such as housing,
health and education without paying bribes, getting into nepotistic interactions and corruption networks.
Fundamentally, local government officials are the main culprits in fueling corruption, but this does not
ignore the fact that citizens also actively participate in corruption. Importantly, a coalescence of factors,
among them the protracted socio-economic crises and administrative inefficiencies, have given riven rise
to corruption.
The social costs of corruption are multifaceted and uneven across various social groups and they create
inequalities and injustices in service provision. Evidently, it is the poor, vulnerable, women, and youths
who disproportionately bear the burden created by corruption. These vulnerable groups are denied
access to basic social services such as housing, education and health in cases where they cannot pay
bribes or enter into nepotistic relationships. Citizens are forced to pay for services that are clearly spelt out
as rights in the Constitution and paid for from public resources. This is evident in land scandals where
housing land is concentrated in the hands of a few officials and those who are part of their corruption
networks whilst ordinary citizens are marginalised. Without sounding alarm bells, the chapter has also
shown that corruption is shaking the moral bre of society and threatening to reproduce a generation of
dishonest youths. Any policies to ght corruption must, therefore, contend with these aspects and other
pertinent issues raised in the chapter.

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Political Economy of Corruption and the Battle for Accountability in Zimbabwe 2000-2015

Published by Transparency International Zimbabwe

2015 Annual State of Corruption

2015 Annual State of Corruption

04 Foreword “The real voyage of discovery does not consist in

2 2015 Annual State of Corruption

2015 Annual State of Corruption 3

4 2015 Annual State of Corruption

06 An Overview The cost of Corruption on the Economy, Politics

6 2015 Annual State of Corruption

In analysing corruption in Zimbabwe, a number of scholars have attempted to problematize Zimbabwe's

2015 Annual State of Corruption 7

8 2015 Annual State of Corruption

Country Zimbabwe South Botswana Zambia Mozambique

Corruption in Zimbabwe: forms, actors, power bases and interests

2015 Annual State of Corruption 9

Petty Corruption: actors involved and their interest

2015 Annual State of Corruption 11

(Source: 2014 National Corruption Barometer)

12 2015 Annual State of Corruption

2015 Annual State of Corruption 13

Ÿ rental which in Harare is on average $80.00 to $120 a month,

14 2015 Annual State of Corruption

Corruption and the Political Landscape of Zimbabwe by Sachikonye

2015 Annual State of Corruption 15

16 2015 Annual State of Corruption

07 Evidence on the Economic Costs of Corruption in Zimbabwe

Corruption also increases ineﬃciency in government expenditure as well as in investment projects as

18 2015 Annual State of Corruption

Evidence on the Economic Costs of Corruption in

Empirical Evidence on the Economic Costs of Corruption

2015 Annual State of Corruption 19

State of Corruption in Zimbabwe

Year Corruption Corruption Perceptions Index

20 2015 Annual State of Corruption

Evidence on the Economic Costs of Corruption in

Table 2: Comparative Analysis of Prevalence and Incidence of Corruption, 2011-12

Drivers of Corruption in Zimbabwe

Table 3: Real Average Earnings Index (2009-2014)

22 2015 Annual State of Corruption

Evidence on the Economic Costs of Corruption in

Table 4: Indicators of Institutional Quality

Year Freedom Fraser Ranking Mo Ibrahim Average

2000 N/A 4.6 119/123 36 46.5

2015 Annual State of Corruption 23

Zimbabwe Zambia South Africa

Corruption and Economic Performance in Zimbabwe: Channels of Causation

24 2015 Annual State of Corruption

Evidence on the Economic Costs of Corruption in

300 400 500 600 700

CPI Fitted values

2015 Annual State of Corruption 25

Figure 2: Private Domestic Investment (PDI) and CPI in Zimbabwe, 1998-2014

CPI Fitted values

CPI Fitted values

26 2015 Annual State of Corruption

Evidence on the Economic Costs of Corruption in

Figure 4: Economic Freedom and CPI in Zimbabwe, 1998-2014

CPI Fitted values

6.0 Costs of Corruption in Zimbabwe

2015 Annual State of Corruption 27

Table 6: Competitiveness and Ease of Doing Business Rankings