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1997-1998 period. The importance of this estimate can be seen when it is realised that all
budgeted government expenditure in the same period was only Z$100 billion.
Corruption ranges from police officers soliciting bribes through to the flagrant flouting of
government tender procedures. One of the most disgusting of the latter involved the
President’s nephew and the building a new airpot in Harare. The tender required the
contractor to self-finance the construction, but, when the tender was awarded, it went to a
company in which the President’s nephew was a director, which had never built an airport
before, and had no money to finance the construction. Parliament was instructed to provide
the finance, which it did reluctantly, and now we learn that the construction is over time, way
over budget, and that senior Ministers have been paid enormous consultancy fees for very
dubious consultations.
The regulatory instrument, Parliament, can do little it seems to curb the corruption, and this
relates to the third symptom, the creation of apathy based on fear. Parliament was elected at
the last general election with as little as 30% of the electorate voting. 50% of the seats,
mostly in the rural areas, were returned unopposed, and, part from this, the President is able
to nominate 20 seats himself. So Parliament owes no allegiance except to itself or to its
benefactors. Parliamentarians are not likely to rock the boat, and those that do are dealt with
in summary fashion.
The lack of a decent voter turnout is widely described as being due to apathy, but apathy in
Zimbabwe is a lack of behaviour based on the motive of fear. An unpublished study of the
last election showed that three factors lay behind the voter apathy: fears that the ballot was
not secret, fears that adherence to an opposition party would lead to pre-election intimidation
and violence, and fears that voting in an opposition candidate would lead to post-election
discrimination and retaliation. In a country that has suffered two civil wars in two decades,
where ZANU-PF uses continuously the rhetoric of violence, where ZANU-PF party members
attack with impunity opposition parties, and where government officers have attempted to kill
opposition candidates, can we be surprised that the ordinary people are fearful about
involvement in politics.
Justice is the key, and it is the many sets of impunity that have set the tone for these
symptoms of disease. When Zimbabwe embraced reconciliation in 1980, it set the tone for
the future. When we forgave all the murderers and torturers of the 1970s, it was inevitable
that we would forgive the murderers and torturers in the 1980s and the 1990s. When we
AMANI