Opinion / Columnist
Zimbabwe's new politics of fraud
29 May 2025 at 10:23hrs | Views
IN Zimbabwe, politics is no longer just the art of the possible.
It has become the science of the scam.
From boreholes to buses, roads to resettlement deeds, today's governance is not merely corrupt - it's cleverly packaged corruption.
A fine-tuned kleptocratic theatre where ribbon-cutting camouflage looting and "Presidential schemes" are just elaborate excuses to raid the national cookie jar.
The regime, desperate for legitimacy both locally and abroad, has become addicted to the illusion of action.
But behind the dramatic drone shots and loud Press statements is a simple truth: Zimbabwe is not being governed - it is being defrauded.
Young faces, old rotten tricks
Take the so-called youthful Cabinet. Advertised as a new dawn, it's actually an old sunset with Botox.
The only real qualification for appointment seems to be proximity to the First Family or tribal-political loyalty to the ruling clique.
Nepotism wears a fresh haircut. Regionalism speaks with Gen Z slang.
But the formula remains unchanged - control the State to loot the State.
The great infrastructure scam
Nowhere is this formula clearer than in the so-called "infrastructure revolution".
A kilometre of tar is quoted at the price of 10. The quality? Worse than a rural goat path in Binga. This isn't nation-building - it's invoice-building.
Contractors with Cabinet connections submit inflated tenders for roads that wash away in the first rains.
The public gets dust, while the elite get Dubai.
And then come the "mega deals" - grandly announced partnerships that turn out to be mega thefts.
Zupco, Belarus and the Tagwirei bus factory of lies.
The now-defunct Zimbabwe-Belarus "Zupco revival" was hailed as a breakthrough.
What it was, in fact, was a money-laundering bonanza for the usual suspects.
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe lent US$54 million worth of buses to Kuda Tagwirei's Landela.
Then, in a comically circular move, it lent Zupco US$106 million to buy those same buses back from Landela.
Tagwirei walked away with US$52 million in profit - all financed by public money - and had the audacity to rent the buses back to Zupco.
We call this a "public-private partnership".
In truth, it's State-enabled daylight robbery.
Landela is just one of many entities in Tagwirei's shape-shifting web, which includes Sakunda Holdings, Fossil Group, Great Dyke Investments - all revolving doors of sanctioned, protected wealth accumulation.
Presidential schemes: A catalogue of criminality
Meanwhile, the Presidential schemes - war veterans, bicycles, goats - are not empowerment tools. They are budgeted crimes with ministerial approval.
In the Presidential War Veterans Scheme, politically-connected businessmen like Tempter Paul Tungwarara were paid to supply overpriced bicycles and drill boreholes. Call it boreholepreneurship.
The now-infamous goat scheme is even more absurd. Marketed as a rural livelihoods programme, it was, in fact, an US$88 million goat ghost project.
Moses Mpofu and Mike Chimombe, now behind bars, allegedly received US$40 million for a goat-breeding company that didn't even exist.
No goats, no facilities, no operations - just creative invoicing.
Their arrest is not justice; it's a factional fallout dressed up as accountability.
Title deeds or title traps?
Now we hear of "title deeds for resettled farmers" - sold as land security but designed as a debt trap.
Farmers are asked to pay US$500 per hectare, with the US$6,2 billion programme underwritten by banks linked to the First Family and the ever-present Tagwirei.
Here's the trick: if the farmers default - and many will - the banks seize the land, resell it for US$10 000 per hectare and walk away laughing.
This is textbook elite land privatisation, Kenya style.
In Kenya, politically-connected cartels made millions converting State land to titled land and reselling it to the poor.
Zimbabwe is simply copying and pasting the same formula, but dressing it in revolutionary rhetoric.
Ironically, while the poor are being set up to lose land, the elite are negotiating US$3,5 billion in compensation for white commercial farmers ousted in 2000.
One class is being de-titled, the other re-paid, all under the watch of a regime that claims to be defending the land revolution.
It is a revolution now owned by banks.
Scamming for the West
Even more cynical is how some of these schemes double as appeasement gestures for the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
Structured debt, "bankable" agriculture, formalisation of land rights - these are keywords that unlock global sympathy and loans.
But they are also traps for the masses, as these policies are often implemented in ways that benefit the elite and penalise the poor.
Let's not forget Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals. We're told Belarus is coming to refurbish it.
Never mind that Belarusian officials themselves fly to Poland for treatment.
It's like hiring a man with no shoes to build you a luxury shoe factory.
The deal is not about healthcare - it's about procurement, overpricing and contracts for cronies.
It's about importing corruption with a Slavic accent.
Scam as governance, governance as scam
The defining feature of this regime is simple: if the President signs it, it's a scam.
Every glossy announcement, every imported bus, every youth conference, every "scheme" - is just the next episode in a reality show called Stealing with Style.
The tragedy is that ordinary Zimbabweans are not just suffering from misgovernance.
They are the targets of an active, institutionalised process of financial extraction - a political Ponzi scheme where every government initiative is another way to rob the poor.
It's time we stopped calling it incompetence or mismanagement. That gives it too much credit. This is not failed governance.
This is successful looting.
And until we name it for what it is - governance by scamming - we will keep confusing robbery for reform and thieves for technocrats.
Zimbabwe we are one. Together we will overcome.
Homeland or death!
It has become the science of the scam.
From boreholes to buses, roads to resettlement deeds, today's governance is not merely corrupt - it's cleverly packaged corruption.
A fine-tuned kleptocratic theatre where ribbon-cutting camouflage looting and "Presidential schemes" are just elaborate excuses to raid the national cookie jar.
The regime, desperate for legitimacy both locally and abroad, has become addicted to the illusion of action.
But behind the dramatic drone shots and loud Press statements is a simple truth: Zimbabwe is not being governed - it is being defrauded.
Young faces, old rotten tricks
Take the so-called youthful Cabinet. Advertised as a new dawn, it's actually an old sunset with Botox.
The only real qualification for appointment seems to be proximity to the First Family or tribal-political loyalty to the ruling clique.
Nepotism wears a fresh haircut. Regionalism speaks with Gen Z slang.
But the formula remains unchanged - control the State to loot the State.
The great infrastructure scam
Nowhere is this formula clearer than in the so-called "infrastructure revolution".
A kilometre of tar is quoted at the price of 10. The quality? Worse than a rural goat path in Binga. This isn't nation-building - it's invoice-building.
Contractors with Cabinet connections submit inflated tenders for roads that wash away in the first rains.
The public gets dust, while the elite get Dubai.
And then come the "mega deals" - grandly announced partnerships that turn out to be mega thefts.
Zupco, Belarus and the Tagwirei bus factory of lies.
The now-defunct Zimbabwe-Belarus "Zupco revival" was hailed as a breakthrough.
What it was, in fact, was a money-laundering bonanza for the usual suspects.
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe lent US$54 million worth of buses to Kuda Tagwirei's Landela.
Then, in a comically circular move, it lent Zupco US$106 million to buy those same buses back from Landela.
Tagwirei walked away with US$52 million in profit - all financed by public money - and had the audacity to rent the buses back to Zupco.
We call this a "public-private partnership".
In truth, it's State-enabled daylight robbery.
Landela is just one of many entities in Tagwirei's shape-shifting web, which includes Sakunda Holdings, Fossil Group, Great Dyke Investments - all revolving doors of sanctioned, protected wealth accumulation.
Presidential schemes: A catalogue of criminality
Meanwhile, the Presidential schemes - war veterans, bicycles, goats - are not empowerment tools. They are budgeted crimes with ministerial approval.
In the Presidential War Veterans Scheme, politically-connected businessmen like Tempter Paul Tungwarara were paid to supply overpriced bicycles and drill boreholes. Call it boreholepreneurship.
The now-infamous goat scheme is even more absurd. Marketed as a rural livelihoods programme, it was, in fact, an US$88 million goat ghost project.
Moses Mpofu and Mike Chimombe, now behind bars, allegedly received US$40 million for a goat-breeding company that didn't even exist.
No goats, no facilities, no operations - just creative invoicing.
Their arrest is not justice; it's a factional fallout dressed up as accountability.
Title deeds or title traps?
Now we hear of "title deeds for resettled farmers" - sold as land security but designed as a debt trap.
Farmers are asked to pay US$500 per hectare, with the US$6,2 billion programme underwritten by banks linked to the First Family and the ever-present Tagwirei.
Here's the trick: if the farmers default - and many will - the banks seize the land, resell it for US$10 000 per hectare and walk away laughing.
This is textbook elite land privatisation, Kenya style.
In Kenya, politically-connected cartels made millions converting State land to titled land and reselling it to the poor.
Zimbabwe is simply copying and pasting the same formula, but dressing it in revolutionary rhetoric.
Ironically, while the poor are being set up to lose land, the elite are negotiating US$3,5 billion in compensation for white commercial farmers ousted in 2000.
One class is being de-titled, the other re-paid, all under the watch of a regime that claims to be defending the land revolution.
It is a revolution now owned by banks.
Scamming for the West
Even more cynical is how some of these schemes double as appeasement gestures for the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
Structured debt, "bankable" agriculture, formalisation of land rights - these are keywords that unlock global sympathy and loans.
But they are also traps for the masses, as these policies are often implemented in ways that benefit the elite and penalise the poor.
Let's not forget Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals. We're told Belarus is coming to refurbish it.
Never mind that Belarusian officials themselves fly to Poland for treatment.
It's like hiring a man with no shoes to build you a luxury shoe factory.
The deal is not about healthcare - it's about procurement, overpricing and contracts for cronies.
It's about importing corruption with a Slavic accent.
Scam as governance, governance as scam
The defining feature of this regime is simple: if the President signs it, it's a scam.
Every glossy announcement, every imported bus, every youth conference, every "scheme" - is just the next episode in a reality show called Stealing with Style.
The tragedy is that ordinary Zimbabweans are not just suffering from misgovernance.
They are the targets of an active, institutionalised process of financial extraction - a political Ponzi scheme where every government initiative is another way to rob the poor.
It's time we stopped calling it incompetence or mismanagement. That gives it too much credit. This is not failed governance.
This is successful looting.
And until we name it for what it is - governance by scamming - we will keep confusing robbery for reform and thieves for technocrats.
Zimbabwe we are one. Together we will overcome.
Homeland or death!
Source - Newsday
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