ZANU PF UK BLOG: Corruption is Chief "Chipfukuto" (Weevil)

By Nick Mangwana

Edmund Kudzayi a former fellow diasporeans resident who had been embedded in the “system” in Zimbabwe was arrested and is currently on remand. In legal parlance his case is subjudice, meaning it is under trial and therefore ill advised to comment into its merits and /or demerits. We all eagerly await the full adduction of the evidence to see which side the case swings to.

It is during this time when we are as Zanu PF in the UK are getting a lot of unsolicited advice and counsel from our colleagues in the opposition parties and civic societies. The gist of the advice is basically, Zanu PF uses and dumps people. “You are being used and once they are done with you, you will be left hanging to dry!” The other school of thought is that Zanu PF hates the Diaspora and is highly suspicious of explaining what they perceive as negative attitude towards one Mududuzi Mathuthu and one Edmund Kudzayi. We scorn at this advice for one particular reason.

ZANU PF members believe and subscribe to its core values -
it is not a party comprised of opportunists

The problem is some of us did not come to join Zanu PF at some point. We have always been Zanu PF. We did not see an opportunity or a gap in the market and seized it. No. We believe and subscribe to its core values; that of empowering the majority. That of one owning the means of production and not being turned into a mere means of production.

We are not fanatics. We are rationally thinking people who are not looking for political expediency or succour. No. In fact let me use the over-used word; we are not seeking patronage. We are only seeking to have a country where we own what is ours. We follow the African Pride of Pan Africanism.

Some people rightly point to corruption and what they perceive as the Party’s high tolerance threshold of that societal ill. We also cannot countenance this evil. In these days when the President has enhanced everyone’s entomological knowledge by giving us a new buzz word called weevil, we also perceive corruption as the worst weevil in our Party and country. We believe it is the chief chipfukuto. We also believe that there is nothing that has brought our Party into disrepute more than this. We will not fighting the corner of those that have been found disloyal to the common good of the party. As the party is on the side of the people, we believe that being on the side of the people, one has to be on the opposite side of the corrupt. We have said that no one should tolerate corruption in the name of patriotism. It is an insult to the value system some of us hold dear. It is an insult to our hunhu/ ubuntu.

It also an insult to the Party which has had the fight against corruption as a running theme in its Manifesto and conferences. All the people are crying for is for us as a Party to stop paying a lip service to the fight against corruption. We have to walk the walk. People are baying for blood. They want scalps of the openly corrupt. Yes, let us weed ourselves of those who are disloyal and treacherous in our midst. Let us remove the tares from our wheat. But the worst disloyalty is to use the common wealth for the enrichment of the self at the detriment of the majority.

The party has fought for the common main in its 50 years of existence

We cannot afford to have a society which does not have a middle class. The society that has the very rich and the very poor. A two station spectrum society. If in 2018 we ask the very rich to vote for us, they are too few to make a difference. We will need the not so resourced to keep us in power.

But this time they will vote us on our track record. That if that track record is that our families are now the ones having a better life than our contemporaries, our children go to better schools and we spin in the best cars showing off to the poor then we will surely lose. We should never run the risk of turning ourselves into a party without a soul. A party without a soul has no conscience. It is that Party which will have Chefs who say, “Mari inonakidza kudya pakati pavarombo”. This directly translate to, “You only enjoy your wealth when surrounded by poverty”. This of course is skewed and very contemptible logic.

Zanu PF is a Party of the people. We are not a party of gimmickry, to win elections. We are a Party that has fought for the common man in our 50 years of existence. If we continue to hold those ethos and values, yes, Tichatonga kusvika madhongi amera nyanga. But if we nurse zvipfukuto (the corrupt) surely we will banished to the dustbin of history.