5.7 The expected role of critical stakeholders in anti-corruption education
5.7.3 Civil Society Organizations
I included the participation of civil society organisations in this study with the realisation that they were also very active and vocal on issues relating to good corporate governance. However, the views represented here were not solely of those from the civil society but were generated from a cross section of three distinct groups namely; government, parastatals and civil society organisations as I stated in section 4.3 of the Methodology.
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From the 30 participants that I interviewed 27 (90 %) agreed that civil society organisations should collaborate with the ZACC in crafting and implementing an effective public education on anti-corruption. One participant commented that:
The civil society knows better the societal requirements regarding public education on anti-corruption because they stay, work and live with the people. Therefore, they are in a better position to assist on educating the public on anti-corruption, (I C S).
However, this idea was heavily disputed by another participant who argued that:
Civil society organizations have no interest at heart of the people they claim to know better. They are political agents for various opposition parties with a regime change agenda, (I G).
The participants also explained that some of the civil society organizations had no good relations with the government after they over stepped and delved into political issues and were labelled ‘agents of regime change’ whose mandate was believed to prop up some opposition political parties. Nyakazeya, (30 May, 2013 in The Financial Gazette) quotes the then Governor and Resident Minister for Bulawayo province, as having said, the Non-Governmental Organisations were part of the regime change agenda. He went on to claim that he had information that proved their source of funding ostensibly to campaign for the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change led by Mr Morgan Tsvangirai. In this regard, a participant commented that:
I still remember very well that the ZANU PF government made frantic efforts to ban the non-governmental organizations back in 2004 by proposing to enact an NGO act which was expected to have sweeping powers that would interfere with the operations of the NGOs through a government appointed NGO council, (I P).
The participant went on to explain that the proposed NGO act failed to take off the ground as it was resisted locally and internationally because of its perceived shortcomings which were thought to be at cross purpose with the country’s obligations under international human rights laws, (www.financial gazette.co.zw). To this date, all civil society work continued to be treated with great mistrust by the
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ruling party and the ZACC needed to be very cautious in engaging and collaborating with them in its public education. I could not pursue some of these sentiments as I felt that they were a bit outside the scope of this study although it was quite apparent that the contributions were loaded with political overtones. However, the majority of the participants went further to suggest that civil society needed to work with ZACC during researches and anti-corruption campaign programmes so that there was little or no suspicion between them and the ZACC. They suggested that the involvement of civil society could then be regulated by signing memoranda of understanding so that there were clearly stipulated parameters within which they could collaborate with the ZACC.
The participants also raised the point that civil society organizations might assist in funding the development of anti-corruption curriculum and resourcing the ZACC’s public education. This was very crucial particularly in helping Zimbabwe to realize the Sustainable Development Goals with special reference to SDG number 16 which spells out the need to:
promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels, (United Nations Sustainable Development Goals).
The Participants were of the view that, civil society should ensure that Zimbabwean institutions needed to be assisted to have robust systems and procedures at all levels which were impervious to corruption through facilitating and funding workshops and seminars on anti-corruption with different stakeholder organizations and individuals. The expertise of the civil society organizations, some of which were international in scope like Transparency International Zimbabwe, might chip in with technical know-how on research, planning and development of public education on anti-corruption, (Chapman and Linder, 2016). Such organizations have offices in 180 countries globally and they might be useful to the ZACC on best practices in executing an effective public education system on anti-corruption.
However, 3 (10 %) of the interviewees pointed out that the ZACC should not delegate its duty to third parties, (Civil Society Organisations). They demanded to know what the ZACC had done with the yearly budgetary allocations they received
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from Treasury. In my opinion, these views were very relevant and realistic and the ZACC needed to improve on its visibility, efficiency and should be accountable on its budgetary issues before it could raise questions on the integrity of other institutions or individuals. This level of transparency and accountability is necessary for the ZACC to attract extra funding which might be very useful in educating the public on anti-corruption.