Opposition leader Tendai Biti has launched a scathing attack on President Emmerson Mnangagwa's administration, accusing it of being driven by greed and transforming Zimbabwe into a "rag-tag corrupt extractive entity" over the past eight years, dashing the hopes of improved governance that many held when they backed the 2017 military coup that removed the late former President Robert Mugabe.
This November marks eight years since the military coup dubbed 'Operation Restore Legacy', which ushered in a new administration under Mnangagwa.
Biti argues that the country's social and economic conditions have deteriorated further under Mnangagwa and that it has now become clear Zimbabweans regret taking to the streets in support of the coup.
"In 8 years they have watched their dreams being butchered by a ruthless cantankerous regime that has no limits nor elasticity. The Frankenstein that Mugabe was has been replaced by a ghoulish vampire sobriquet driven by greed, corruption, voyeurism and bohemianism. There are no more rules. There are no more standards. There is no longer ideology, principle or any higher norm. A pack of hungry ravenous hyenas are on steroids consuming everything and anything in their way," Biti wrote on X on Wednesday.
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According to the Prosecutor General, Zimbabwe is losing at least US$2 billion annually to corruption and ranks 149th on the International Corruption Index. Biti says the scale of graft reflects a government "driven by greed".
Added Biti: "Zimbabwe's mines, its gold, its lithium, its chrome are on the guillotine, being looted with a ferocity that would make Cecil John Rhodes wince in embarrassment.
"The country's State Enterprises have been privatised and captured under a shady web called the Mutapa Fund. A ghost caricature that operates outside the reach of Parliament and line Ministries."
Biti further accused Treasury of abandoning basic oversight principles and operating "like a tuck shop", with funds reportedly disbursed to tenderpreneurs willing to pay kickbacks.
Former Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Budget and Finance chairperson Energy Mutodi told Parliament in October that the Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Finance, George Guvamatanga, was demanding kickbacks from ministries and government contractors of between 5% and 10%, reportedly reaching as much as US$200,000 per disbursement.
"The National Purse, once jealously protected by years of British tradition of checks and balance, is now a little tuck shop that makes disbursements to anyone prepared to pay the proverbial ten percent to a coterie of Bandits clad in Savile Row suits," Biti added.
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The former Finance Minister also criticised Mnangagwa's handling of major tenders, saying controversial businessmen such as Kudakwashe Tagwirei and Wicknell Chivayo had become major beneficiaries of opaque procurement processes.
"Tenderpreneurs who have cut their teeth in Command Agriculture and fuel are the new High Priests of a decadent dystopian reality created by 18 November. The party of Tekere and Herbert Chitepo, a pan African moment is now the embarrassed harem of Rolls-Royce-riding buffoons in oversized pajamas. It is now a parallel entity flanked by engineered affiliates united only by greed and vacuousness," he added.
Vice President Constantino Chiwenga has publicly labelled the controversial tenderpreneurs as a corrupt business mafia deserving imprisonment, while Mnangagwa has described them as philanthropists, insisting he cannot dictate how they spend their money.
A few months ago, Chiwenga reportedly tabled a corruption dossier in a Zanu PF Politburo meeting, implicating Chivayo, Tagwirei, Delish Nguwaya, Pedzai Sakupwanya and Paul Tungwarara, questioning why no arrests had been made.
