RBZ schemes structured to loot state coffers

From The Zimbabwe Telegraph - By Edwin Mlambo, 15th April 2009

The entrance of the RBZ into the process of “empowering” farmers to live up to the goals and targets of sustainable commercial farm utilization through the Farm Mechanization Program was not only welcome but genuinely inventive, in the face of the dearth of private financing amidst non-existent property rights.

As the Zimbabwean government made an economic bed full of the fleas of flagrant disregard for property rights, it was to be turned into an individual wealth creation machine by Gono and close associates.

The farm mechanization program was a domestic and market, industry focused solution for a problem of a fast deflating, financially isolated regime.

Mechanization meant the massive mobilization of domestic resources for the ends and means of fully capacitating the new farmer to produce for the national and export need.

Like with all things, the struggle for the control of all natural resources, mainly the land was the chief driver of both our revolutionary wars (Chimurenga 1 and 2).

The land hunger that continued well after independence and gave way to the fall-off of the restrictive and negotiated Lancaster House Constitutional arrangements had the people and later their legitimately elected ZANU-PF party controlled government takes over land and embark on the revolutionary land reform program.

The process of apportioning land to deserving and restless indigenous farmers brought on an almost immediate onslaught of sanctions from Western government’s investors and the multi-lateral institutions they control.

For the nation RBZ control was not the problem.

The lattice-work of implementation and logistical mechanisms of these economically warranted quasi-fiscal activities bore the cancerous ogre and vampire instincts of naked corruption and unbridled greed.

This has left Zimbabwe without any meaningful and tangible benefits from the program apart from a distinctly a rich vein and legacy of back-room deals and grand larceny.

The sheer collection of equipment from an incredible collection of manufacturers the world over has guaranteed that the many new brands brought into the country will ever prove to a nightmare in terms of spare-parts and maintenance issues.

The Zimbabwean agricultural landscape is forever littered and scarred with unserviceable equipment from Romania, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Iran, and Israel and incredibly as far afield as Brazil and Venezuela.

It was indeed an impressive way to ruin the agro-equipment industry network which used to thrive on British, Italian and American brands.

Most if not all the needed implements equipment was sourced from international sources an assortment of front-end companies insidiously set up and controlled by domestic elements at the RBZ were fraudulently and secretively awarded to these companies.

The corruption was foisted and advanced on several different fronts- Cost and Sell Price Inflation

There was a massive padding of the genuine and legitimate prevailing international/domestic market prices of the equipment.

The taxpayer was put in a financial wringer of having to meet up to the constant and unremitting printing appetites for massive outflows of ZW$ cash components to mop the much needed Forex.

Most if not all these cash movements and mobilizations were done with little or no accounting justification and recording.

The extra cash was forwarded to mopping up Forex on the black market as well as buying up gold through the networks and channels established by Mirirai Chiremba-Senior Division Chief for Financial Intelligence/Anti-Laundering and Bank use Promotion (the preferred ex BSAP hatchet-man for Gono from the CBZ days).

Customs Duty, Excise and VAT Avoidance/Waivers and or Interference

As most if not all the equipment that came to sustain the Farm Mechanization Program came from external suppliers’ normal customs duty, excise and or VAT charges were supposed to be paid.

The growing economic tentacles of the central bank saw the RBZ principals bullying the ZIMRA personnel into avoiding and or waiving any normal fees and import duties that were supposed to been levied the equipment imported.

The normal charges would be inclusive of customs duty, excise tax, and or VAT.

After having paid nothing, their appointed companies who were suppliers would be paid prices inclusive of all customs charges.

Misappropriation and Misallocation of Imported Equipment

The corruption gravy-train did not stop with the entrance of the farming equipment into the country but was extended in the form of the misallocation, misappropriation and mishandling of the equipment.

Non-deserving, and or non-existent farmers were allocated the eagerly awaited equipment.

An insidious system of the control of normal and traditional power structures was also nurtured and nursed through the use of this system through the favored allocation of equipment to pliant and blue-eyed politicians and public servants would be roped into directly reporting to and working for the RBZ principals rather than the government.

There were innumerable incident of plain looting of the equipment, with the proceeds finding themselves on the secondary market. Some big wigs in ZANU PF would deliberately bring back used equipment after removing some essential parts to the RBZ storage depots each time new equipment arrived.

They would be re-allocated the newer equipment with the half stripped and older equipment getting allocated to either lower level political operatives and so on. This only served to exacerbate the chain of bad equipment.

Importation of Decrepit and Old Equipment

Impeccable sources within the RBZ an outside the country supplied some documentary evidence of the existence of a scam to import old and used equipment on the regional and global market and pass it off as new after spray-painting it at some huge depot in Mafeking, South Africa.

Old name branded tractors were bought at auction houses and retrofitted with new outer shells and dials and passed off as new.

This was the most treacherous part of the exercise as it assured that the Farm Mechanization Program would not be a success on the basis of old decrepit equipment, but also on the unsustainability of the financial support structures to undertake such a massive program.

Agricultural Equipment/Implements Hire-Lease Schemes-Scams

A select group of division chiefs at the RBZ would get a blanket allocation of critical equipment like combine harvesters and tractors and they in turn would find more use in operating hiring schemes with to those farmers without adequate farm implements.

The same scam of illegal return on already illegally allocated machinery will be operationalized.

Scapegoats and False Arrests

To much fanfare from his car receiving media goons the beleaguered Governor-Gono trumpeted the beginning of a comprehensive audit of the Farm Mechanization Program by the sensational start of the audit of his own farm(s).

What he was counting on was the “rented support” of elements within the so-called Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) and the planned micro-managing of such an audit.

The activities and pace of investigation amidst mounting pressure(s) from many stakeholders has made close-containing of the scale and scope of investigations and investigators harder.

The A.C.C. through many submissions, on RBZ quasi fiscal activities has been so massive that Governor Gono quickly went into legal fire-fighting mode by sacrificing his personally appointed Division Chief for the program and relative-Mordecai Masakwa.

Masakwa like most people was a willing and useful tool and conduit to the plunder that was to be thrown to the investigative wolves and scandalized in his absence. He was whisked away by Gono’s people and first stayed in Malawi and is widely rumored to be in Dubai at one of the ‘able’ Governor’s many houses there.

If squeezed Masakwa can talk and his absconding from court was a result of the legitimate fears of RBZ principals about him “spilling the beans” as it were.

SWARAJ-MAZDA BUS SCHEME

Transport in Zimbabwe has been as much a perennial problem as the roads.

With the onset of elections like in all other cycles before the government made much noise and effort about getting to work on solutions to the nation’s perennial blues.

The RBZ on the back of the last bus acquisition scandals of ZUPCO and associates saw an opportunity to muscle in on a lucrative procurement program.

They lobbied and positioned themselves through Dr Millicent Mombeshora (Senior Division Chief: Special Projects, Strategy, Local Areas Reorientation and the RBZ Academy) as a trusted, efficient and low cost procurement conduit for buses.

The quick solution to the problem of effecting quick deliveries before elections through creative Forex mobilization was to come from Itochu Corporation (Mazda).

Dr Mombeshora is married to Dr Douglas Tendai Mombeshora a cousin and homeboy to Dr Ignatius Chombo (both hail from Zvimba). Mere relationship is not scandalous but what you get here is a replication of the ZUPCO scandals of old which involved Government officials adding a "mark up" to the price paid by Government.

Years before Mazda had supplied some knocked down kits and specs for some bus assembly project to some investment outfit in India.

As fate was to have it, the low cost fishing exploits of the investment consortium was to see them setting up assembly arrangements with a Kenyan coach builder.

The result was that the manufacturing specifications for the busses were not strictly adhered to and the whole product was declared “unroadworthy”.

An opportunity for wholesale importation of the condemned product was quickly seized upon-similar to the -Santana Police Vehicle importation scandal of yester years.

The corruption medium was through the ubiquitous shadowy investment interest in domestic importing agency/ external exporting outfit, massive inflation of selling prices, creative avoidance of all customs charges, and lastly the use and abuse of state resources for ZANU PF electioneering exploits.

Another conduit for malfeasance with this program was through the salient set-up of a program for hiring these unroadworthy vehicles to select and blackmailed corporate, local authority and parastatal entities for transporting staff and the general public. Some even found themselves operated by and hired out to ZUPCO.