Home | Feature | DOES ACC STILL EXIST?

DOES ACC STILL EXIST?

25/10/2018 04:13:00 By vusi Kunene

Font size:

BY the time you read this article, we may have moved closer to having a full complement of our government. We may have had the prime minister installed and only waiting for Cabinet to be appointed to has a full government in place.

I have mentioned it before that the people entrusted with that responsibility have to prove to the nation that they are the right people despite the many wrongs that we see in the manner they were elected. We now have evidence of people being bribed in the august House. The EBC have not been of much assistance in this regard. They must shoulder the blame, even though I think they are not alone.

As this unfolds some questions were asked, which got me thinking of whether the Anti-Corruption Commission is still in existence in the country. I have not heard of them for some time now, yet there is a lot going on that needs the attention of the commission. Is it not corruption when a person ‘buys’ his or her way into Parliament? Is bribery not one of those offences that fall under the auspices of corruption?

We have heard, since the election process began, of people who bribed others and I am yet to see or at least hear of any action taken by the ACC. We now have a lady crying foul after she bribed others to vote for her and she mentioned that she had all the evidence and is willing to go down with those she bribed. What more does the ACC need to act on this case.

We are not going to have a credible Parliament because the people who end up being elected broke the law to get into the honourable House. If no one acts against a wrongful action then others will follow suit and do the same thing.

Votes

People have been buying votes even before the election of senators. Who will forget the guy up north who is now demanding that he be given his soccer jerseys because he was ‘buying’ the team players to vote for him. Is this not something worth to be acted upon by the ACC? It is this silence from an institution that was very active in the past that makes me think we no longer have a corruption watchdog.

It also came to my mind that the ACC was also a tool for certain people to silence those who opposed them. I know that the ACC will be saying it was incapacitated by a judgment that was issued by the chief justice when he refused to issue a warrant of arrest. I will not believe that but will say thumbs up to the chief justice for not allowing this entity to destroy people without just cause.

I say just cause because the majority of the people who were arrested by the ACC have up to date not been tried and convicted. The institution was very quick to arrest and would publicly parade those whom it had arrested and up to date there have been no prosecution thereafter. Our former chief justice would easily grant the warrants of arrest and people would be arrested and not prosecuted thereafter. To me that means they would obtain the warrants without the evidence which is what is required by the law.

The current chief justice wanted to see the evidence before issuing a warrant of arrest and the ACC would fail to provide same. This was a wakeup call to the ACC and it never knew what to do because the former chief justice would simply issue warrants without bothering to see the evidence.
Maybe the ACC will say it had problems because it no longer had a leader after Mr Mngwengwe, but I ask myself if an institution like this one would be incapacitated just because one officer is not available?

Is it not possible to have the immediate junior act in that position like it happens in all institutions? Even if so, why is it that even those cases where there were arrests, they were not prosecuted This reminds me of the case where they arrested some lawyers and at the same time opposing their bail. I am asking myself if the court had not granted the lawyers bail, would they be still in custody even today after such a long time.

Or like I have mentioned, they were hell-bent on parading the lawyers than having them prosecuted? Blame will be apportioned to the ACC if these people in Parliament do not deliver as expected because the ACC was complicit when there were allegations of people trying to bribe their way into Parliament. That is only if we still have an institution called the ACC.