Constantino Chiwenga’s name should be pretty well known – at least in Southern Africa. He is the army general who, in November 2017, led the coup that toppled the late Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s hitherto strongman President, who had just about run his country into the ground during his well-nigh 40-year rule.
Zimbabwe held much promise when its former colonial masters, the British, packed their bags in April 1980. This prompted Tanzania’s President at the time, the much-revered Julius Nyerere, to remark during the celebrations marking the birth of the new nation that Mugabe had inherited a jewel in Africa. “Don’t tarnish it,” Nyerere exhorted the newly elected Prime Minister, who would become President in 1987.
Mugabe’s performance in his early years as Zimbabwe’s leader was quite commendable: he made education and healthcare accessible to all and the economy grew at what one would call decent rates. But by the time he was forced to surrender power, Zimbabwe’s economy had been shrinking for years, corruption in high places was the order of the day, unemployment had reached stratospheric levels and millions of Zimbabweans – including professionals who had acquired much-needed skills courtesy of Mugabe’s massive education drive – had voted with their legs, settling in neighbouring countries and in far-flung places like Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Canada.
When Chiwenga et al staged the coup, which propelled Emmerson Mnangagwa to power, hopes were raised that Zimbabwe was poised to return to its former glory. But the past two years have shown that that hope was misplaced. By many accounts, the situation is worsening, including on the grand corruption front.
Zimbabweans got a glimpse into corruption involving the nation’s elite when the soap- opera-like divorce proceedings between Chiwenga and his young wife started playing out in December. He had her arrested for allegedly preventing his aides from taking him to hospital as he lay gravely ill in a Pretoria hotel, detaching life-saving contraptions from him when he was eventually admitted to hospital, duping a judge into believing that he had consented to the solemnisation of their union and transferring more than $1-million from the country under false pretenses.
When Marry Mubaiwa, 38, was released on bail earlier this month – after languishing in remand prison for about three weeks – she was denied access to their matrimonial home and to their three young children by soldiers acting on her 63-year-old husband’s instructions.
But the former model was not about to take it lying down. She made a beeline for the courts. She dismissed the attempted murder charge as laughable, while arguing that the transfer of money to South Africa took place with the full knowledge of her husband and with the assistance of his business associates. Should these allegations be true, then Chiwenga – and by extension the regime that is now in charge of Zimbabwe – is as corrupt as the Mugabe regime that it replaced. Externalising foreign currency in a country that desperately needs hard cash for imports should be viewed in a particularly dim light.
But what is more damning is the settlement that Mubaiwa is seeking. She wants a monthly maintenance of $40 000 for herself and $2 500 for each of her three children. This is in addition to school fees and annual holidays to international, regional and domestic destinations that would cost the Vice President $50 000, $25 000 and Z$25 000 respectively (one Zimbabwe dollar is on a par with one South African rand on the black market).
Having lived with the Vice President for the past nine years, Mubaiwa should know that he can afford her demands. The question is: How has he been able to amass such a fortune? He is not known for his business acumen. It is therefore not far-fetched to assume that he has been the beneficiary of grand corruption.
It appears that, for Zimbabwe, the more things change, the more they remain the same.