BY CRISIS REPORT
ROWDY politicians and individuals with links to the ruling party are using their political connections to loot national resources and evade arrest at a time the government has shown lack of political will to deal with high level corrup- tion, Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition spokesperson, Marvellous Khumalo has said.
Zimbabwe has lost millions of United States dollars due to illicit gold trade and despite the culprits being apprehended there have not been convictions with the culprits walking scotfree while wining and dining with political heavy- weights.
A case in point is that of Zimbabwe Miners Federation president Henrietta Rushwaya who, was apprehended at the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport in October (2020) while in possession of 6kg of gold which she intended to smuggle to Dubai.
Rushwaya allegedly used political links to evade conviction and later on went to win the presidency of the Zimbabwe Miners Federation despite her case being before the courts.
Several high-ranking officials and individuals with links to ruling party politicians have been involved in cases of gold smuggling and corruption related to procurement of Covid-19 materials, but the cases continue to fall away.
In some of the cases, the President of Zimbabwe, Emmerson Mnangagwa and the First Family have been implicated.
In an interview, Khumalo said the fact that there have been no convictions on these crimes makes the second re- public complicit in corruption and illicit gold trade.
“We know for a fact that Mnangagwa has been involved in illicit gold trading since time immemorial and his activities and shenanigans in the Midlands Province are well docu- mented,” he said.
“Henrietta Rushwaya represents a network of illegal gold dealers and that is why she is untouchable and cases against her are easily thrown away given her history at Zimbabwe Football Association.”
During her tenure as the Zimbabwe Football Association president, Rushwaya was implicated in match-fixing scandals that became to be known as Asiagate.
“The moment we have a State president who is also involved in illicit gold trading, then that is when we lose the plot as a country in terms of tackling gold smuggling and ensuring the arrest of the gold smugglers,” said Khumalo.