What happened to real economic development in Zimbabwe ?

Zawya

2 days ago

In recent months, Zimbabweans have been bombarded with announcement after announcement of so-called 'revolving funds' launched by President Emmerson Mnangagwa's government, supposedly as a form of economic empowerment.
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The most recent was a US$300,000 fund, with US$200,000 earmarked for Health Ambassadors for Economic Development – a ZANU PF affiliate operating under the banner of 'Health Ambassadors for ED' – and US$100,000 for 'BoysDzamdara', another partisan group.
Just a day earlier, the same government launched another US$200,000 fund for 'Mapositori for ED', also a ZANU PF-aligned group.
Over the past year, we have witnessed similar schemes targeting war veterans, youth, teachers, women's groups, hairdressers, pastors, and many others – all under the banner of revolving funds intended to stimulate so-called 'projects'.
But how is plunging citizens into debt supposed to be empowerment?
Is this truly the vision of economic development under the so-called 'Second Republic'?
When a government claims to be empowering its people but does so through debt, forcing citizens into the precarious world of informal survivalist projects – often far removed from their training, passion, and professional aspirations – then something is fundamentally broken.
This growing tendency by the Mnangagwa administration to reduce empowerment to loans for 'projects' exposes a deep and systemic failure to create a functional economy.
Take myself, for example.
I am a journalist by training.
My passion and profession lie in writing, in informing the public, in shaping national discourse.
But in the Zimbabwe of today, I cannot earn a decent living through this passion, despite my qualifications and decades of experience.
Instead, if I want to 'empower' myself under this government's model, I must take a loan – a debt – and perhaps start a poultry project or sell tomatoes on the roadside.
But I never studied poultry farming.
I have no particular love for selling tomatoes.
These are not choices born of passion or vision.
They are choices born out of desperation.
In any normal country with a working economy, people pursue careers aligned with their skills and interests and are able to live decent lives doing so.
Side projects, where they exist, are driven by personal interest – not by poverty, not by the failure of the state to ensure a functioning economy.
Yet in Zimbabwe, that is the cruel reality.
A trained teacher is no longer just a teacher.
They must become a vendor, selling airtime, snacks, or vegetables on the side.
A nurse is no longer simply a nurse.
She is now also a hairdresser, or perhaps baking cakes to make ends meet.
These so-called 'projects' are nothing more than desperate attempts to survive in a broken economy, where wages are not only insufficient but often irregular and meaningless in the face of hyperinflation and exchange rate volatility.
These are not symbols of entrepreneurship – they are symptoms of state-authored poverty.
Worse still, these revolving funds being paraded as government achievements are pitiful in both scale and impact.
Take the US$200,000 for Mapositori, for instance.
How many Mapositori exist across Zimbabwe?
Tens of thousands, possibly more.
How many are expected to benefit from this amount?
A few hundred? A few thousand?
Even if each beneficiary receives US$200 – a figure far too little to meaningfully start any business – that would only cover 1,000 individuals.
What happens to the tens of thousands left out?
And more critically, what are the realistic chances that those who do receive the money will succeed in repaying it?
Then comes the hard question: in a hostile and dysfunctional economy that has already plunged these same citizens into poverty and shut down countless companies, what are the realistic chances that these beneficiaries will repay their loans?
With formal unemployment hovering above 90%, and most Zimbabweans barely scraping by in the informal sector, how many of these so-called 'projects' are likely to succeed — let alone generate enough income to settle debts?
In such a bleak economic landscape, where survival alone is an achievement, the sustainability of these revolving funds becomes more fantasy than fact.
The very notion of a revolving fund presupposes that initial beneficiaries will be able to repay their loans so that others can benefit next.
But what happens when those beneficiaries fail – not because they are lazy or irresponsible, but because they are operating in a hostile and dysfunctional economic environment?
How long after the fund is launched will the second batch of recipients receive anything, if ever?
It becomes painfully clear that these funds are not sustainable.
They are not scalable.
They are not empowering.
They are political tokens – headline-grabbing gestures meant to create an illusion of activity and concern, while distracting from the fundamental collapse of the economy.
In fact, trying to build an economy by pushing citizens into debt is a dangerous and irresponsible experiment.
A truly empowered citizen is not one who is burdened with the anxiety of loan repayments.
True empowerment comes when individuals can earn a decent income from their professions, live with dignity, and plan for their futures without having to beg for handouts or join partisan groups for access to resources.
Under Mnangagwa's rule, however, people are being reduced to hustlers – not out of choice, but out of compulsion.
And to make matters worse, the revolving funds are often channeled through ZANU PF structures, further politicising poverty and tying access to livelihoods to political loyalty.
This entire model of so-called empowerment is an open admission that the Mnangagwa government has failed to build a sustainable economy.
A functioning state does not need to intervene by giving out loans to individuals just to keep them afloat.
In a thriving economy, people earn from their jobs, run profitable businesses based on genuine demand, and access funding through formal institutions like banks – not through politically-driven patronage schemes.
If the President truly wants to empower Zimbabweans, he must focus on making the economy work again.
That means creating a stable macroeconomic environment, ensuring the rule of law, eliminating corruption, and attracting real investors who can build factories, companies, and industries.
It means fixing the public service so that teachers, nurses, and police officers are adequately paid and motivated.
It means supporting small businesses by creating enabling conditions – reliable power, fair taxation, efficient transport – not by handing out scraps and expecting people to succeed in a storm.
Zimbabweans deserve real empowerment – where their skills, qualifications, and passions are rewarded in a functioning system.
They deserve to stand on their own two feet, not constantly reliant on government intervention or political favour.
Until we see policies that restore the dignity of the worker, that rebuild the capacity of national institutions, and that foster genuine economic activity, then all these revolving funds are nothing more than a smoke screen.
Debt is not empowerment.
Poverty masked as opportunity is not development.
And until the Mnangagwa administration realises that true empowerment lies in structural reform, not in political tokenism, Zimbabwe will remain stuck in this tragic cycle of desperation and deception.© Copyright The Zimbabwean. All rights reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).