Marry Chiwenga  prosecution reveals a toxic cocktail of corruption, misogyny and abuse of office

I refused to be intimidated. A short while later I was fired without warning from my job at a government-funded publishing house.

I admit I step on many government toes with my writing, but I will forever wonder to what extent her threats were linked to my firing.

Marry Chiwenga failed to manage the power that came with being married to an army general cum vice president. Many do not feel sorry for her for what is happening, but for the sake of justice and constitutionality, we cannot condone what the vice president is doing to his wife.

The nature of the allegations against Marry Chiwenga tells a story of a family that had access to millions of dollars. Marry Chiwenga is accused of externalising US$1-million. Where on Earth did a civil servant’s wife get US$1-million?

How much do vice presidents earn that they could have access to that kind of money? How much did Constantine Chiwenga earn as an army general?

Pictures of the Chiwengas’ mansion did the rounds on social media after the overthrow of Robert Mugabe, exposing just how rich the general must be. If ZACC was truly in the business of investigating corruption, would it not have gone further than arresting Marry Chiwenga and dug deeper into the source of the US$1-million?

Do the Chiwengas’ earnings justify their wealth?

Let us look at how Marry Chiwenga is said to have externalised the money. Had she smuggled the money to South Africa stuffed in suitcases we wouldn’t bat an eyelid, we would think she is just another common criminal.

What is shocking is that Marry Chiwenga is accused of having externalised this money through formal channels. She waltzed into CBZ bank, past pensioners and others who had probably been in the queue for days, and somehow managed to get the bank to transfer hundreds of thousands of US dollars to banks outside Zimbabwe.

This is enraging to many Zimbabweans whose US dollar bank balances were changed overnight to a worthless local currency.

The fact that Marry Chiwenga could get a Zimbabwean bank to transfer up to a million US dollars outside Zimbabwe is shocking and triggering to many of us who have failed over the years to get foreign transfers of humble amounts processed.

Tobacco farmers, whose products are sold in forex, are wallowing in poverty because they are paid in local currency by the government as forex is said to be directed to priority imports.

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