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

What priority imports did Marry Chiwenga buy with her US$1-million? Is the government prejudicing tobacco farmers of their hard-earned cash to fund their own lavish lifestyles?

On the invoices that Marry Chiwenga is said to have produced to the bank, there was tents and chairs as well as prepaid electricity meters. What did she tell the bank the tents and chairs were for, for them to authorise the release of hundreds of thousands of dollars of scarce foreign currency?

Why was Marry Chiwenga purporting to import electricity meters? Is she the one supplying them to the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC)?

On what grounds would she be doing that?

What the externalisation and money laundering charges have exposed is nothing short of organised crime. For Marry Chiwenga to do this she had to get authority and thus collusion from CBZ bank which had to get authority and thus collusion from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ).

Why are they not charged or at least being investigated for facilitating this crime?

Is Constantine Chiwenga, the complainant in this case, not the one who paved the way for Marry Chiwenga to have access to this syndicate that allows government officials to transfer such large amounts of money outside Zimbabwe?

How many others have this kind of access to state coffers? Just this week, Emmerson Mnangagwa Junior, son of President Mnangagwa, is said to have bought his girlfriend Pokello Nare, former Big Brother Africa housemate and stepdaughter of Ignatious Chombo, a Range Rover 2020 worth at least US$70 000.

How did the president’s son manage to accumulate that much forex?  Where is he based? If in Zimbabwe how did he get the money out of the country? What is his source of income?

This is not the first time CBZ bank has been found to have facilitated transfers of forex for government officials or their spouses.

In 2016, it facilitated the botched purchase of a US$1.4-million diamond ring that Grace Mugabe reportedly bought for herself on behalf of Robert Mugabe as a 20th wedding anniversary gift.

The same CBZ bank that was assisting government officials to externalise money in the Robert Mugabe era is today seemingly doing the same for Mnangagwa’s government.

For its roles in this scandal, is ZACC going to investigate CBZ bank too? Will they investigate the RBZ?

I have been asking myself, since when are externalisation and money laundering punishable offences in Zimbabwe?

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