HARARE -Prisons commissioner Paradzayi Zimondi (Pictured) has transformed the Zimbabwe Prison Service (ZPS) into a quasi-military corps, running the correctional service as his personal fiefdom, disgruntled prison officers told The Zimbabwean this week..

They recounted how Zimondi had transmogrified the prison service from its duty to provide correctional services into a full military wing.

Sources revealed systematic plunder of the prison service by the commissioner, and how State resources had been diverted to bankroll Zimondi’s myriad personal enterprises.

Officers said food had been allegedly seized from prisons, leaving prisoners in despair.

After the March 2008 harmonised poll, prison officers recalled how Zimondi seized 100 cattle and 10 horses from Chikurubi Farm, and transferred all prison pigs to his farm. He is said to have brought famished cattle in to replace the heifers he allegedly looted.

Zimondi would seize milk and fresh produce from the farm prison and take it to his restaurant in Ruwa, called Plaka.

“He took building materials from the ZPS stores and built a dairy at his farm in Bromley,” said one officer. “Builders, electricians, carpenters were made to do the work. He built houses in Harare. I worked on some of the projects. We built a house in Milton Park, renovated one in Gunhill, and built a house for the (Justice and legal Affairs) permanent secretary, David Mangota in Donnybrooke using government materials stolen from the ZPS stores,” he said.

Other equipment was also said to have been taken to Zimondi’s two other farms in Shamva and Bindura. There are unconfirmed reports that he co-owns a banana plantation with police commissioner-general Augustine Chihuri.

It was further alleged Zimondi had properties in Kariba, where he is involved in a poaching ring slaughtering elephants for ivory. To over up the tracks, the meat is given to prisoners, but most of the time it is going bad. “He uses prison vehicles to transport the bodies of elephants,” said the officer. “Prison vehicles are not searched at roadblocks, making easy passage.”

Poaching

The poaching was said to be taking place in Gonarezhou and Hwange. The Zimbabwean heard that these activities had been going on since April 2009.

“He has also built a church in Murehwa using prison materials,” another source said.

Officers say that as far back as 1999, Zimondi established a military police branch at the ZPS. From 2001, he brought in soldiers from the Zimbabwe National Army to head all prison departments at the expense of experienced officers, who were forced into early retirement or moved from headquarters to work in prisons.

These military personnel include commissioners Ndlovu, Chihobvu – head of security; Kanonge – finance; Dube – construction, Maredza – projects and Ndebele – quartermaster.

Officers spoke exclusively to this newspaper about the purge of the prison service by Zimondi over the past decade, recounting in meticulous detail harassment and torture of officers suspected of being sympathetic to the MDC.

“From 2000, Zimondi controlled the ZPS cruelly. When Zanu (PF) lost to the MDC (in 2000), Zimondi formed the prisons military police to control and suppress MDC sympathisers in the ZPS. Torture of officers began. When Tendai Biti won the Harare East (constituency) in 2000, he held a celebration rally at Gletwyn Farm near Chikurubi. Officers who attended the rally were arrested and tortured. Some were discharged from their duties. The case was brought before the Rotten Row Magistrates Court. The perpetrators were found innocent and went back to work.”

The tortured officers were named as Shepherd Yuda, Andew Mabidi, Officer Njiri, Officer Bvunzawabaya and Officer Masarakufa, who has sine left the prison service and is now an MDC-T councillor in Mhondoro.

The situation worsened dramatically during the run-up to the sham June 27, 2008 run-off polls. At the heart of Zimondi’s terror campaign were asst commissioner Pambai, the officer-in-charge at Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison, the chief superintendent, the superintendent, principal prison officer (PPO), Gavhu, PPO Ndebele, prison officer Choto, prison officer Gonzo, prison officer Moffat, Makurudzo, PPO Malunga, prison officer Nyakahembe, PPO Ngulube.

A security department, allegedly manned by central intelligence organisation operatives Makurudzo, Mthombeni and Nyakahembe masquerading as prison officer, was formed. Efforts to obtain comment from Zimondi were futile at the time of going to print. The ZPS public relations requested written questions, which have been submitted.

The Ministry of Justice is facing fresh pressure to overhaul its prison facilities, after the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was finally ‘allowed’ to begin work on improving conditions at the prisons.

Andre Jaross, the ICRC deputy head of delegation in Harare, said the organization began work two weeks ago at Chikurubi Maximum Security and Harare Central prisons, and would soon extend its work to other jails across the country.

The government reached an agreement with the ICRC to work in the prisons following shocking reports that emerged in the media that brought international condemnation.

Film taken secretly in the prisons showed living skeletons, unable to move, and makeshift mortuaries filled with bodies. A prison sentence in Zimbabwe today is almost a guaranteed death sentence. Prisoners who have no family to bring them extra food are virtually guaranteed a slow and very painful death.

Shepherd Yuda, a former prison officer, told us prisoners are packed into dark, airless, lice-infested cells, where they are exposed to life-threatening diseases like AIDS and tuberculosis, for which they receive little or no medical treatment.

Yuda urged the ICRC to do more than simply assess conditions in prisons, and urged them to evaluate inmates’ requirements and prepare a report for the government. He said they should call for an overhaul of the whole prison system, starting from top to bottom.

Yuda blames Prisons Commissioner Paradzai Zimondi for the decay in the prison system. He said that before Zimondi took over the country’s prison system was one of the best in the Southern African region.

‘We used to have standards and guarantees about the treatment of prisoners: an individual, whatever his or her crimes, must not be tortured; must not be held in unsanitary or unsafe conditions that could place him in danger or lead to his death; he is entitled to adequate nourishment and medical care. He is, above all, entitled to his dignity. Yet this basic right is routinely being flouted throughout the prison system in Zimbabwe,’ Yuda said.

‘Every single level of authority in our country has failed our prisoners. Overcrowding and tight budgets create an atmosphere ripe for disease, abuse and violence. Right now our prisons don’t help rehabilitate anyone. Conditions in the system create monsters instead of reforming,’ Yuda added.

Human-rights groups have also voiced their concern about the prison conditions in the country. They said it will take a major reform of the entire system to eradicate the kind of practices prevalent in the prisons.

ZimOnline reported on Monday that a local prisoners’ rights group, the Zimbabwe Association for Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation of the Offender (ZACRO), said at least two inmates die everyday from hunger and disease at Chikurubi and Harare Central – the country’s two biggest jails.

The Website said most prisoners have to survive on a single meal per day of sadza and cabbage boiled in salted water, because there is no money to buy adequate supplies.

Former prison guard Shepherd Yuda risked his life by secretly filming how members of the security services were forced to vote under supervision during the sham one-man presidential run-off.

For 6 tense days he captured life at Harare Central Prison.

Now safely out of the country Yuda joins Lance Guma, Behind the Headlines, and tells why he decided to expose the rigging.

He says the murder of his uncle, Tapiwa Mubwanda in Hurungwe, and friend Tonderai Ndira in Mabvuku, spurred him into action.

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Lance Guma

Producer/Presenter