Nature, Causes and Organisation of Bureaucratic Corruption in Key Informal Market Sectors of Post-Millennium Zimbabwe

Abstract

Bureaucratic corruption stands rooted firmly among the major debilitating obstacles constraining
progress and positive transformation in emerging markets. This was confirmed by investigating its
nature, causes and organization in Zimbabwe’s two key informal market sectors, namely the
Street-based Vegetable and Fruit Vendors (Mavhenda/Abathengisi), and the Street-wise Bureau
de Change (Chenji-mani/Osiphatheleni) sectors that sprouted in the country’s towns and cities
after the turn of the new millennium. By analyzing qualitative data drawn chiefly from in-depth
interviews with conveniently and purposively sampled twelve participants generated out of a
population of eighteen in each of the three case studies undertaken in three separate cities/towns
in the country, this study unveiled a prodigious view of the dynamic trends that bureaucratic
corruption has tended to adopt in post-millennium Zimbabwe, and particularly also in contexts that
involve protracted interfacing between these fledgling informal markets and key public entities,
namely, law-enforcement and municipal agencies. The study’s findings demonstrated that
corruption involving public officials and operators of these sprawling markets was prevalent, that
rather than conflicting, the former and the latter collaborated, and that the former strived to cushion
own strained corporate rewarding systems, while the latter used the vice to guarantee own market
protection. The study refreshes attention on the sticky subject of corruption and furnishes
academics, researchers and policy-makers with a panoramic view of its extent in contemporary
Zimbabwe. Authorities are urged to urgently intervene by addressing the interests of both parties
in the corrupt relationship before the vice incinerates the gains of national progress enshrined in
the country’s highly subscribed innovation and industrialization agenda.