GMB boss arrested on corruption charges

By Violet Gonda
28 August 2006

A retired army colonel and head of the Grain Marketing Board, Samuel Muvuti, was arrested Friday on fraud charges. It’s reported that the GMB boss had been using the company’s salary coffers to pay his own farm workers.
There have been a string of arrests including last week’s jailing of ZUPCO Chairman Charles Nherera for two years over claims he solicited a US$85,000 bribe in exchange for awarding a tender to supply buses to an Asian businessman. Robert Mugabe had announced a crackdown on corruption last month.
But political analysts Dr John Makumbe said people should not read too much into these arrests. He said they are meaningless as the “big fish” like Ministers Ignatius Chombo and Didymus Mutasa (who have been implicated in some of these corrupt cases) are being allowed to get away with it. “But idiots like Nherera are caught in the crossfire and they are locked up. Even Muvuti is too small – he is small fish,” said Makumbe.
The analyst said the arrests do not in any way show that Mugabe is serious about corruption. “He lives with corruption right in his cabinet but he is not touching them because they know about his own corruption.”
Nelson Chamisa the Secretary for Information and Publicity for the Tsvangirai MDC said in a statement the arrest of the GMB chief executive confirms to the people of Zimbabwe that Zanu PF is the breeding ground of corruption and unbridled political patronage.
‘The MDC believes that his arrest is a token attempt by a cornered regime to be seen to be taking action on a serious scourge that has taken root in the higher echelons of Zanu PF and the government.’
It is widely believed that some of the arrests are happening because of infighting and factionalism within the troubled ruling party. Dr Makumbe expressed regret that the opposition is not taking advantage of this chaos in Zanu PF. He said: “The opposition is happily silent or they are busy fighting each other instead of fighting the real enemy. That is a pity.”