Zimbabwe remains among the world’s most corrupt nations while the elite amend the constitution to protect their looting

How does the protection of looting end up being framed as the national interest?


​The release of the 2025 Transparency International Corruption Perception Index (CPI) should have been a moment of somber reflection for Zimbabwe’s leadership, yet it has instead become a masterclass in the absurd.

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As of February 2026, the numbers tell a story of a nation frozen in a state of ethical decay.

Zimbabwe’s score for 2025 stands at a dismal 22 out of 100, a microscopic “gain” of just one point from the 21 recorded in 2024.

To the bureaucrats in Harare, this single point might be framed as “incremental progress,” but to the citizen in Redcliff, Hwange, or Bulawayo, it is nothing short of an insult.

This marginal shift—a statistical rounding error in the grand ledger of national failure—represents a country that has not moved an inch from the bottom of the global barrel.

Ranking 157th out of 180 countries, Zimbabwe remains entrenched in a league of nations where corruption is not just a frequent occurrence but the very foundation of the state.

When a country stagnates at such levels for years on end, it signifies that the systems of accountability are not just broken; they have been deliberately dismantled to serve a predatory elite.​

This stagnation is the definitive hallmark of the so-called “Second Republic,” an era that promised “New Dispensations” but instead perfected the art of the loot.

What we see today is corruption that has moved beyond mere bribery and transitioned into a sophisticated, state-sanctioned artform.

It is a system where the “feeding trough” is guarded by the very people sworn to protect the constitution.

The levels of corruption in Zimbabwe are no longer a series of isolated incidents; they are a structural reality where public resources are treated as the private inheritance of a few well-connected cartels.

These cartels operate with a level of impunity that borders on the theatrical, openly flaunting their ill-gotten wealth while the rest of the nation languishes in a sea of grinding poverty.

There is no remorse, no shame, and certainly no fear of the law, because the law has been reshaped to act as their shield.​
The most egregious evidence of this systemic protection is the ongoing assault on the country’s constitution.

As the ruling elite feels the pressure of their own failures, their response is not to reform but to consolidate.

The proposed constitutional amendments—aimed at extending presidential terms from five to seven years and removing the direct election of the President—are the ultimate betrayal of the Zimbabwean people.

These changes have absolutely nothing to do with the welfare of the citizen and everything to do with protecting the elite’s place at the feeding trough.

By entrenching themselves further in power, they ensure that the channels of looting remain open and that the “Second Republic’s” artform of extraction can continue indefinitely.

The message to the people is clear: your suffering is the price of our longevity.

The constitutional amendments are essentially a legal fence built around the national treasury, ensuring that the same hands that emptied it remain the only hands that can touch it.​
While these political maneuvers take place in the air-conditioned corridors of power, the reality on the ground is one of visceral, daily suffering.

The cost of this unchecked looting is measured in the lives of Zimbabweans.

Public services are not merely “crippled”—they are in a state of terminal collapse.

Service delivery has become a myth, a ghost of a functioning state.

Consider the plight of towns like Redcliff, where the taps have been dry for years.

How does a town in a modern nation-state survive for years without reliable, consistent running water?

It is a tragedy measured in the thousands of women needlessly dying in our under-resourced public hospitals—gasping for breath without oxygen or hemorrhaging on cold floors because basic supplies have vanished—all while the millions that could have fixed these systems are diverted into multi-million-dollar public tenders.

These institutions have become literal death traps where the poor are sent to languish without medicine, without equipment, and at the mercy of a demoralized staff left to preside over a graveyard of state failure.

These tenders are handed out like party favors to “tenderpreneurs” often without a shred of proper procurement procedure, leaving the public to pick up the pieces of a crumbling nation.​
The infrastructure of Zimbabwe has become a literal war zone.

To drive on our national roads is to navigate a landscape of craters and decay, a direct result of funds meant for maintenance being siphoned off into offshore accounts.

It is a tragedy of epic proportions that in a country so rich in natural resources—gold, diamonds, lithium—the general populace should struggle to put a single meal on the table or find it impossible to send their children to school.

The wealth that should be shared equitably to benefit every citizen is instead concentrated in the hands of a few who boast of their riches in front of the very people they have robbed.

What manner of people have absolutely no shame in flaunting luxury cars and mansions in the face of a mother who cannot afford the bus fare to take her sick child to a clinic?​
The lack of shame is perhaps the most haunting aspect of the Zimbabwean crisis.

There is an audacity to the corruption that suggests the ruling class no longer feels the need to even pretend they care.

They have turned the state into a vehicle for self-enrichment, and they view the suffering of the masses as a mere background noise to their accumulation of wealth.

They give each other tenders for projects that exist only on paper, and when the money vanishes, they simply ask for more.

This is the pattern of the “Second Republic”: a cycle of looting, a display of wealth, a tightening of the grip on power, and a total abandonment of the social contract.

Every “victory” they celebrate, every ribbon they cut on a shoddily built bridge, is a mockery of the struggle of the average Zimbabwean.​
We must confront the reality that these constitutional amendments are the final stage of state capture.

By moving toward a system where Parliament—which they control through intimidation and patronage—elects the President, they are effectively disenfranchising the entire population.

They want to remove the “inconvenience” of an election so they can feast in peace.

They want to extend their terms so the crimes they have committed against the national purse never face the light of a courtroom.

It is a desperate, calculated move to ensure that the “Second Republic” never has to answer to the people it has impoverished.​
The people of Zimbabwe must realize that the longer this elite stays in power, the longer the suffering will endure.

Corruption is not a bug in their system; it is the system itself.

The constitutional amendments are the final lock on the door, intended to keep the people trapped in this cycle while the resources of the nation are bled dry.

We are witnessing the systematic destruction of a country’s future for the sake of the present comfort of a cartel.

The 2025 CPI ranking of 22 is not just a number; it is a scream for help from a nation that is being run into the ground by its own leaders.

Until the feeding trough is dismantled and the cartels are held to account, Zimbabwe will remain a land of plenty for the few and a land of lack for the millions.

The “one-point gain” is not a sign of hope; it is the silence of a grave being dug for the dreams of our children.

- Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. To directly receive his articles please join his WhatsApp Channel on: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaqprWCIyPtRnKpkHe08