Willowgate was a 1988–89
political scandal
In politics, a political scandal is an action or event regarded as morally or legally wrong and causing general public outrage. Politicians, government officials, party officials and lobbyists can be accused of various illegal, corrupt, unethic ...
in
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozam ...
involving the illegal resale of automobile purchases by various government officials, uncovered by ''
The Bulawayo Chronicle''. The ensuing investigation resulted in the resignations of five members of President
Robert Mugabe
Robert Gabriel Mugabe (; ; 21 February 1924 – 6 September 2019) was a Zimbabwean revolutionary and politician who served as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe from 1980 to 1987 and then as President from 1987 to 2017. He served as Leader of the ...
's cabinet. One of the five,
Maurice Nyagumbo
Tapfumaneyi Maurice Nyagumbo (12 December 1924 – 20 April 1989) was a Zimbabwean politician, who spent almost two decades in prison as a consequence of his political activities.
Life and career
Nyagumbo was born in 1924, in Makoni, near Rusap ...
, later committed suicide after being charged with perjury. The reporters who had broken the story,
Geoffrey Nyarota
Geoffrey Nyarota (born c. 1951) is a Zimbabwean journalist and human rights activist. Born in colonial Southern Rhodesia, he trained as a teacher before beginning his career with a Zimbabwean state-owned newspaper, '' The Herald''. As editor of t ...
and
Davison Maruziva
Davison Maruziva is a Zimbabwean journalist and editor. Along with Geoffrey Nyarota, he broke the 1989 "Willowgate" scandal that resulted in the resignation of five government ministers, but was forced from his job with the state-owned '' Bulawa ...
, were subsequently removed from their posts.
Background
In the 1980s, Zimbabwe faced a serious shortage of
motor vehicles
A motor vehicle, also known as motorized vehicle or automotive vehicle, is a self-propelled land vehicle, commonly wheeled, that does not operate on Track (rail transport), rails (such as trains or trams) and is used for the transportation of pe ...
, and was one of the few countries in the world where the number of registered automobiles had declined over the previous few years.
The cause of this scarcity was a shortage of
foreign exchange reserves
Foreign exchange reserves (also called forex reserves or FX reserves) are cash and other reserve assets such as gold held by a central bank or other monetary authority that are primarily available to balance payments of the country, influence ...
, which prevented the country from importing enough vehicles to meet demand.
Part of the reason for this was that Zimbabwe was paying off its
foreign debt
A country's gross external debt (or foreign debt) is the liabilities that are owed to nonresidents by residents. The debtors can be governments, corporations or citizens. External debt may be denominated in domestic or foreign currency. It incl ...
on schedule, rather than extending payments over a longer period like most other African countries at the time.
In the year before the scandal, one-third of Zimbabwe's $1.8 billion in foreign income went to debt payments, with most of the rest spent on oil imports and the
military
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...
.
At the time, there were only two legal importers of cars into Zimbabwe:
Willowvale Motor Industries, located in
Willowvale,
Harare
Harare (; formerly Salisbury ) is the capital and most populous city of Zimbabwe. The city proper has an area of 940 km2 (371 mi2) and a population of 2.12 million in the 2012 census and an estimated 3.12 million in its metropolitan ...
, and a sister plant, which assembled
Mazda
, commonly referred to as simply Mazda, is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Fuchū, Hiroshima, Japan.
In 2015, Mazda produced 1.5 million vehicles for global sales, the majority of which (nearly one m ...
,
Toyota
is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...
, and
Peugeot
Peugeot (, , ) is a French brand of automobiles owned by Stellantis.
The family business that preceded the current Peugeot companies was founded in 1810, with a steel foundry that soon started making hand tools and kitchen equipment, and the ...
vehicles from imported kits.
Willowvale was a subsidiary of IDC, a
parastatal
A state-owned enterprise (SOE) is a government entity which is established or nationalised by the ''national government'' or ''provincial government'' by an executive order or an act of legislation in order to earn profit for the government ...
, and its board was chaired by the permanent secretary of the
Ministry of Industry and Commerce.
The foreign currency shortage had caused production to fall from a peak of 7,430 vehicles in 1982 to only 2,416 in 1988.
At the company's plant in Harare, which had the capacity to assembly 4,500 cars a year, just 1,400 were produced in 1987.
Meanwhile, the government estimated that the country needed more than 20,000 new vehicles each year to replace old ones and meet new demand.
With a backlog of 100,000 vehicles, purchasing a new car became nearly impossible for many in Zimbabwe, and many
dealerships
A car dealership, or car dealer, is a business that sells new or used cars, at the retail level, based on a dealership contract with an automaker or its sales subsidiary. Car dealerships also often sell spare parts and automotive mainten ...
stopped taking names on waiting lists.
At the time, the law prioritized government ministers and members of parliament for new car purchases, allowing them to skip the waiting list on the grounds that they needed vehicles to carry out official business.
Unable to purchase a car at home, many Zimbabweans pooled their vacation allowances—roughly $200 in foreign exchange per family member—to purchase used cars in neighboring countries like
Botswana
Botswana (, ), officially the Republic of Botswana ( tn, Lefatshe la Botswana, label=Setswana, ), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory being the Kalahar ...
.
Many of these cars were in poor condition, and the government closed the holiday loophole in 1988, concerned that the foreign purchases were costing $5 million a year in foreign currency.
In response to ballooning prices, the government set price controls on motor vehicle sales.
A
black market
A black market, underground economy, or shadow economy is a clandestine market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality or is characterized by noncompliance with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the se ...
emerged for new and second-hand vehicles, and dealers and sellers found ways to circumvent these controls.
The Sandura Commission, set up to investigate the Willowgate scandal, was told of "undesirable practices" taking place in this context, including
part exchange __NOTOC__
A part exchange or part exchange deal is a type of contract. In a part exchange, instead of one party to the contract paying money and the other party supplying goods/services, both parties supply goods/services, the first party supplying ...
arrangements in which dealers asked customers who wanted a new car to provide a used one in exchange, which they would then resell at a much higher price.
Some dealers also evaded price controls by selling vehicles indirectly at an uncontrolled price through a connected third party, and splitting the profit.
Scandal
In October 1988, member of parliament
Obert Mpofu
Obert Moses Mpofu is a Zimbabwean politician, who served as Minister of Home Affairs from 2017 to September 2018. Previously he was Minister of Macro-Economic Planning and Investment Promotion; Minister of Industry and International Trade; Minis ...
accidentally received a cheque from a car company in
Willowvale, an industrial area of
Harare
Harare (; formerly Salisbury ) is the capital and most populous city of Zimbabwe. The city proper has an area of 940 km2 (371 mi2) and a population of 2.12 million in the 2012 census and an estimated 3.12 million in its metropolitan ...
; the cheque had actually been intended for Alford Mpofu, a friend of Industry Minister
Callistus Ndlovu
Callistus Dingiswayo Ndlovu (9 February 1936 – 13 February 2019) was a Zimbabwe, Zimbabwean academic, diplomat, and politician. He joined the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) in 1963 as a teacher in Matabeleland, and went on to serve as it ...
. Obert Mpofu took the cheque to Lancyott Mpofu and Prince Sunduzani, editors of the state-owned ''
Bulawayo Chronicle''. The paper had already built a reputation for aggressive investigations into corruption at all levels of government, and began to investigate.
In the weeks following their discovery of the cheque, Nyarota and deputy editor
Davison Maruziva
Davison Maruziva is a Zimbabwean journalist and editor. Along with Geoffrey Nyarota, he broke the 1989 "Willowgate" scandal that resulted in the resignation of five government ministers, but was forced from his job with the state-owned '' Bulawa ...
learned that ministers and officials from the government of President
Robert Mugabe
Robert Gabriel Mugabe (; ; 21 February 1924 – 6 September 2019) was a Zimbabwean revolutionary and politician who served as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe from 1980 to 1987 and then as President from 1987 to 2017. He served as Leader of the ...
had been given early access to buy foreign cars at the Willowvale assembly plant.
In some cases, the cars were bought wholesale and resold at a 200% profit.
Implicated ministers included Ndlovu, Political Affairs Minister
Maurice Nyagumbo
Tapfumaneyi Maurice Nyagumbo (12 December 1924 – 20 April 1989) was a Zimbabwean politician, who spent almost two decades in prison as a consequence of his political activities.
Life and career
Nyagumbo was born in 1924, in Makoni, near Rusap ...
, Defense Minister
Enos Nkala
Enos Mzombi Nkala (23 August 1932 – 21 August 2013) was one of the founders of the Zimbabwe African National Union.
Political career Role in ZANU-PF
During the Rhodesian Bush War, he served on the ZANU high command, or Dare reChimurenga as Tr ...
and Minister of State for Political Affairs,
Frederick Shava, who was later elected as President of the UN Economic and Social Affairs Council in 2016. The newspaper published documents from the plant to prove its case, including identification numbers from the vehicles.
Consequences
In December 1988, Mugabe appointed a three-person panel, the Sandura Commission, to investigate the allegations.
The ''
Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' reported that the commission's hearings "struck a deep chord" in Zimbabwe, where citizens had grown to resent the perceived growing corruption of government. A provincial governor and five of Mugabe's cabinet ministers eventually resigned due to implication in the scandal, including Shava, Nkala and Nyagumbo, who at the time was the third highest-ranking official in Mugabe's party, the
Zimbabwe African National Union
The Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) was a militant organisation that fought against white minority rule in Rhodesia, formed as a split from the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU). ZANU split in 1975 into wings loyal to Robert Muga ...
(ZANU).
Nyagumbo committed suicide by drinking pesticide. Other officials who resigned after being implicated in the scandal included Higher Education Minister Dzingai Mutumbuka, Matabeleland North
Matabeleland North is a Provinces of Zimbabwe, province in western Zimbabwe. With a population of 749,017 as of the Zimbabwean census, 2012, 2012 census, it is the country's second-least populous province, after Matabeleland South Province, Matab ...
Governor Jacob Mudenda
Jacob Francis Mudenda is the current Speaker of the National Assembly of Zimbabwe and a member of the Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF). A longtime schoolteacher and lawyer, Mudenda joined the Zimbabwe political scene a ...
, and Deputy Minister of Sport and Culture Charles Ndlovu.
However, Nyarota and Maruziva were both forced out of their jobs with the state-owned paper and into newly created public relations positions in Harare. Though the men were given pay raises, Mugabe also stated that the move was a result of their "overzealousness", leading to public belief that they had been removed for their reporting. ZANU parliamentarians also criticized Nyarota and Maruziva, with the Minister of State for National Security Emmerson Mnangagwa
Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa (, American English, US: (); born 15 September 1942) is a Zimbabwean politician who has served as President of Zimbabwe since 24 November 2017. A member of ZANU–PF and a longtime ally of former President Robert Muga ...
stating that criticism was welcome, but "to the extent that the press now deliberately target Government as their enemy, then we part ways."
In popular culture
The scandal featured prominently in the lyrics of Solomon Skuza
Solomon Skuza (1954–1995), also known as Jah Solo was a Zimbabwean musician, one of the most popular to come out of Plumtree. In addition to his native Kalanga, he wrote lyrics in Ndebele, Shona and English as well. Other popular Kalanga mus ...
's album ''Love and Scandals''. In one song, he asks, "how can someone buy a car and sell it again?" In another, he sings of his love leaving him for "a guy who owns a Cressida", referring to the Toyota Cressida
The is a compact, later mid-size sedan manufactured and marketed in Japan by Toyota between 1968 and 2004. Prior to 1972, the model was marketed as the Toyota Corona Mark II. In some export markets, Toyota marketed the vehicle as the Toyota Cres ...
s assembled at Willowvale.
The scandal was fictionalized in George Mujajati's novel ''The Sun Will Rise Again'' as the "Sisida Scandal".
See also
* List of -gate scandals and controversies
This is a list of scandals or controversies whose names include a ''-gate'' suffix, by analogy with the Watergate scandal, as well as other incidents to which the suffix has (often facetiously) been applied. This list also includes controversi ...
References
{{Reflist, 30em
1988 in Zimbabwe
1989 in Zimbabwe
Government of Zimbabwe
Political scandals in Zimbabwe