Fresh revelations that the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) is running secret businesses must be thoroughly investigated in the interest of transparency and accountability, which is necessary for a publicly funded entity.
According to a new report by The Sentry, a United States-based no-profit investigative and policy organisation that seeks to disable multinational predatory networks that benefit from violent conflict and klpetocracy, titled The CIO’s Business Network laid bare the secret service’s opaque business dealings.
The investigation relied on publicly available information, which The Sentry said suggested that the CIO “controls Terrestrial Holdings, a business conglomerate of companies involved in hemp, solar energy, coal mining, tourism and golf”.
Another CIO-linked company was identified as Whitelime Mining, which was awarded mining concessions covering 50 000 hectares near Lake Kariba.
The CIO is a government branch under the president’s office, hence its funding must come from the official funding and the indication that it runs business ventures as a source of off-budget financing raises serious questions about transparency.
An earlier report by The Sentry had claimed that the CIO was behind the establishment of the controversial Forever Associate Zimbabwe (Faz), a Zanu PF affiliate, which was allegedly led by the agency’s deputy director general Walter Tapfumaneyi.
Both the CIO and Tapfumaneyi were denying allegations that they were behind Faz, which was singled out by foreign observer missions for compromising the credibility of last year’s elections as it sought to influence the polls in Zanu PF’s favour.
In an ideal situation, the CIO like all other government departments, must be subjected to financial oversight and transparency.
Institutions such as Parliament should be taking serious interest in the reports by The Sentry, which could be a pointer to serious governance breaches. Ideally the CIO must be a politically neutral organisation whose duty is to protect national interests.
When national security organs are allowed to operate in the dark they become prone to abuse by individuals, who are pursuing their own partisan agendas.
The opposition and civic society must make use of the two reports by The Sentry to lobby for a full disclosure on the alleged off budget financing of CIO operations and the organisation’s involvement in partisan Zanu PF politics in order to defend Zimbabwe’s democracy.
Faz’s involvement in last year’s elections put a huge dent on Zimbabwe’s electoral democracy and acting on such threats to transparency must never be taken lightly.