THERE is a huge scandal taking place in broad daylight, and at night too.

But let’s start with a disclaimer, just so that we are all sitting under the same tent, leaking or rainproof.

You see, Covid-19 and the resultant lockdowns have caused untold suffering among the people here in Zimbabwe and elsewhere.

The twin evil has disrupted survival, leaving people without jobs or opportunities to earn a decent living.

Businesses have closed down and those that have survived have been left limping.

But people are not like birds of the air that survive without having to find money from somewhere.

They must work for themselves, their families and their dependents.

This also applies to informal traders and others that have been thrown out of employment by Covid-19.

So, there is no quarrel on this. The same goes for those businesses whose operations were incapacitated by the pandemic.

Whenever the slightest opportunity emerges, they must run and grab it so that life moves on.

But then, the law is the law. And ethics are ethics. Whatever you will do in these trying times, you have no excuse breaking the law.

You still must know that what is right will have to remain right, no matter how hungry you are.

And this applies to the usual suspects too.

Those chaps that will use their power to break the law and eat, to bend the morals so as to eat.

That one is dusted, so let’s go to the marrow.

Early this year, government decreed Statutory Instrument 87A to deal with the second wave of Covid-19.

These days, by the way, they hardly bother to use parliament to make laws — unless of course they are doing things to entrench their power so that, even in 2030 and beyond, they would still be there, ruling.

They throw statutory instruments at you like they would do confetti at a cultic wedding.

That aside, SI87A is not a bad law. It has good intentions if you are not a habitual cynic.

Because there was a second wave of Covid-19 — please believe that — they had to use the law to ensure that the borders were closed to Jack and Jill.

That would help contain the pandemic by limiting movement.

After all, it was free movement during Christmas that had led to a spike in the coronavirus caseload.

But please note this, the law didn’t completely shut down the borders.

They remained open to a special category of travellers, among them those providing essential services, foreign nationals on transit, returning citizens blah, blah, blah.

But informal traders and bus operators were not anywhere near this list.

That’s where the big scandal referred to at the beginning is.

Bus operators are ferrying thousands and thousands of traders across the border into South Africa every hour of the clock.

Just go to Roadport and High Glen cross-border bus terminuses and you will see it for yourself.

Scores of buses are moving in and out without the slightest hassle.

Travellers tell you openly what happens, sometimes even boastfully.

The buses take them to the border, bribe immigration and customs and proceed smoothly.

The border chaps don’t search the buses on their way out and on their way back. That’s the routine.

Passports are not checked or stamped because that would easily expose the scam.

It’s only those that are permitted to be crossing the border and have their travel documents in order that produce their passports.

And those soldiers that you always see close to the bridge that Cecil John Rhodes built, they are busy doing nothing if you stay long enough to notice.

Nor the police. The same applies on the Musina side. No passports checked, no disembarking from the bus, no fuss.

The law is an ass, on a scale of one to 10. But we have to ride the ass for as long as it is standing on its feet.

That means the law must be followed for as long as it’s there.

It’s unbelievably scandalous that thousands of travellers are breaking the law every day and nothing is happening.

This high volume of traffic from and back to Zimbabwe is exposing us to a third wave of Covid-19.

How come things are being let to happen that way?

Why is it that, even at Roadport and High Glen where there are police bases, the law is not being enforced?

The simplistic answer, of course, is: Corruption. Money is talking.

The bus crews and passengers are bribing the police, army as well as immigration and customs officials.

This is a clear case of systematic corruption that involves many high stations.

It seems the security agents are in it big time and don’t care a hoot for as long as they are being greased.

And it becomes a truism that immigration and customs are eating big too. But there is nothing new in this. They have been doing that from the time Zimbabwe was invented, anyway.

The big fish link is what remains elusive, though. It looks like there are fat cats that are making this whole thing possible.

It’s an unwritten truth that some of the buses are owned by high ranking politicians.

It doesn’t matter that they use proxies most of the time.

So then, the whole thing becomes a slippery slope.

The fat cats must remain in business. And they are in the business, 24/7 as you can see.

It doesn’t matter that they are the ones that make the laws.

In order to ensure they don’t get exposed, they let the other operators in too, taking camouflage in numbers.

Have a look, if it was plain operators doing it on their own and the big fish were not eating too, it wouldn’t have taken a day to flush them out and stop the rot.