ZACC must arrest Ziyambi Ziyambi for fraudulently giving MDC Alliance money to MDC-T 

An interesting revelation was made by the Zanu PF legal secretary Paul Mangwana during a debate organized by the Zimbabwe Elections Support Network (Zesn) mid July 2020. Mangwana was very clear in reiterating what many, including myself in one of my articles, that apart from purposes of elections where contesting parties register through the Zimbabwe Elections Commission to participate in elections, which participation entitles the parties which achieve a certain threshold of the votes in the election to access resources from Government under the Political Parties Finance Act, there is no any other legal registration currently expected of political parties. Said Paul Mangwana:“There must be law that brings to existence political parties. In our situation three or four people can simply announce, we are a political party and they exist according to the current situation yet we have the Political Parties Finance Act where they access public resources. Yet the way they come into existence is not regulated, the way they fold up is not regulated. So I think in order for political parties to exist, there must be subsidiary legislation which gives effect to their existence”

As has been said by many, a fact which Dr. Khupe and Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi will accent to, among the political parties which registered for the elections in 2018 were the MDC-T whose Presidential candidate was Dr. Thokozani Khupe, and the MDC Alliance whose Presidential candidate was Advocate Nelson Chamisa. Both parties are entitled to get the resources provided for under the Political Parties Finance Act if they achieved the required threshold. There being no any other legal requirement to register political parties other that for elections under the Electoral Act, one cannot divert money owed to the MDC-T to the MDC Alliance, or divert money owed to the MDC Alliance to the MDC-T as has been done by shameless and unprincipled Ziyambi Ziyambi. Equally shameless and unprincipled are those who have lobbied for this money to be diverted to their use.

It would appear this brazen theft of MDC Alliance money in broad daylight was well-choreographed illegal move by Ziyambi Ziyambi and the Dr. Khupe Faction meant pay back the Dr. Khupe faction following her statements that she “will continue to support President Mnangagwa…” following a POLAD retreat to Mnangagwa’s farm which could be prospering because of some ill-gotten cash received from Government through the Farm Mechanisation Programme as recently revealed. And the payment was additional to sponsored international trips to lobby the international community to ease restrictive measures applied on some individuals by the United States Government and the European Union

Despite Justice Manongwa stating in his judgement:

“It is not disputed that the MDC Alliance gained more than 5% of the votes entitling it to benefit from the provisions of the Political Parties Finance Act”

adding that:

The entitlement in the aforesaid sum was duly confirmed in a Government Gazette of 28 February 2020. The Ministry of Justice officials assured the MDC Alliance that the monies were to be deposited in the applicant’s account. This more than satisfies the requirement of prima facie right. There is proof that the State acknowledges the applicant’s entitlement”;

and with the case still pending before the courts, Ziyambi Ziyambi went ahead and gave the money to the MDC-T. Let me reiterate that there is no provision in the Supreme Court ruling which installed Dr. Khupe to be Acting MDC-T 2014 structures President that relates to diversion of funds from one political party to another, and the ruling itself was not mandatory and requiring the temporary set up to become water under the bridge if an election is not held by 31 July 2020.

Ziyambi Ziyambi’s diversion of funds from the MDC Alliance to the MDC-T is an act of corruption which has to be reported to Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) to test its sincerity.