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THE PRICE OF THE BADGE: Inside the Zimbabwe Republic Police’s Corrupt Core Murewa – The crackle of the police radio used to be a sound of reassurance for the residents of Murewa, a signal that law and order were being maintained. However, for many Zimbabweans navigating the nation’s potholed highways, that same sound has increasingly […]

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THE financial difficulties confronting OK Zimbabwe have prompted a familiar chorus of explanations. Critics have attributed the company’s declining fortunes to poor management, weak procurement systems, ineffective leadership, stock shortages and an inability to respond to changing market conditions. While these factors may have contributed to the company’s challenges, they do not adequately explain why one of Zimbabwe’s oldest and most established retailers has experienced such a dramatic deterioration.

By Brighton Musonza

A more fundamental question deserves attention. Why has OK Zimbabwe endured far greater commercial losses than competitors such as TM Pick n Pay, despite operating within the same national economy? The answer lies less in corporate management than in the profound structural transformation of Zimbabwe’s economy over the past two decades.

The two retailers may appear to compete in the same industry, yet they increasingly operate in different economic environments. They serve different consumer segments, operate in different geographic markets, face different forms of competition, and are exposed to different currency dynamics. Their contrasting fortunes therefore reveal less about managerial competence than about the changing nature of Zimbabwe’s economic landscape.

Reducing OK Zimbabwe’s predicament to a management failure overlooks the broader structural forces that have steadily reshaped the country’s retail sector. Good management undoubtedly matters. Effective executives can improve procurement, negotiate favourable supplier contracts, modernise technology, reduce operational costs and enhance customer service. However, there are limits to what even the most capable management team can accomplish when the market itself is undergoing structural disintegration.

No airline can thrive indefinitely if airports cease functioning, regardless of how competent its executives may be. Likewise, banks cannot create liquidity where none exists simply through better administration. Supermarkets are no different. They depend on functioning supply chains, predictable consumer demand, organised financial systems and stable pricing mechanisms. When these foundations begin to erode, managerial skill alone becomes insufficient to arrest decline.

This is precisely the situation confronting OK Zimbabwe.

Although consumers often compare OK Zimbabwe directly with TM Pick n Pay, the comparison frequently ignores a crucial economic distinction. The two companies increasingly serve different Zimbabwes.

Historically, OK Zimbabwe positioned itself as the supermarket of the mass market. Its customer base consisted primarily of lower- and middle-income households, civil servants, pensioners, factory workers, urban high-density communities and rural consumers. Its business model was built around serving ordinary Zimbabweans through extensive branch networks located within traditional central business districts and densely populated urban centres where pedestrian traffic was greatest.

For many years, this represented a formidable competitive advantage. High foot traffic translated into consistently strong sales volumes and broad national market coverage. However, the same geographical positioning that once underpinned the company’s success has gradually become one of its greatest structural disadvantages.

TM Pick n Pay developed along a markedly different trajectory. While it certainly serves a broad range of consumers, many of its flagship stores are located within shopping malls and suburban commercial centres that cater predominantly to middle and upper-income households. These consumers generally enjoy greater access to stable foreign currency earnings and remain more closely integrated into Zimbabwe’s shrinking formal economy.

This distinction has become increasingly significant as Zimbabwe’s economy has evolved into what can best be described as two parallel economic systems operating alongside one another.

On one side exists the formal economy, comprising registered businesses, regulated manufacturers, commercial banks, tax-compliant enterprises and organised retailers. On the other side has emerged an expansive informal economy characterised by street vendors, cross-border traders, informal wholesalers, pavement retailers, cash dealers and largely unregulated commercial activity.

Over the past decade, the informal sector has expanded dramatically. International institutions consistently rank Zimbabwe among the world’s most informal economies, with informal businesses accounting for a substantial share of economic activity and employing the overwhelming majority of the labour force. As the informal economy has grown, it has steadily absorbed consumers, suppliers, capital and commercial activity that previously flowed through formal institutions.

This transformation has fundamentally altered the operating environment for companies such as OK Zimbabwe.

Perhaps nowhere is this more visible than in the geographical realities of retail competition.

Many OK Zimbabwe branches remain located in the heart of Zimbabwe’s central business districts. Outside numerous stores, customers encounter rows of pavement vendors selling fresh produce, groceries, household goods, clothing and countless other everyday necessities. In many instances, these traders begin operating only metres from supermarket entrances.

The result is a form of competition unlike that experienced by most retailers elsewhere in the world. Customers entering an OK Zimbabwe store are immediately presented with informal alternatives upon leaving. These alternatives frequently offer lower prices, greater flexibility in negotiating purchases, smaller package sizes suited to constrained household budgets and, perhaps most importantly, the ability to transact exclusively in United States dollars.

Consequently, OK Zimbabwe finds itself competing not merely with other supermarkets but with an informal marketplace operating directly outside its own premises.

TM Pick n Pay is exposed to a significantly different competitive environment. Many of its stores are situated within enclosed shopping malls where access is controlled, and informal vending is either prohibited or strictly limited. Customers visiting these centres generally intend to shop within formal retail outlets rather than compare prices with pavement traders. The physical environment itself, therefore, provides an important competitive advantage by insulating formal retailers from direct informal competition.

Location, in this context, has become an economic determinant rather than simply a matter of convenience.

An equally important consideration is that formal supermarkets and informal vendors do not operate under the same commercial rules.

Another dimension that is often overlooked is the economies of scale. Large supermarket chains are designed to operate on high sales volumes spread across extensive store networks. Their profitability depends not only on gross margins but also on the ability to distribute substantial fixed operating costs over millions of customer transactions.

As sales volumes decline, these economies of scale begin to unravel. A supermarket cannot proportionately reduce many of its core operating expenses simply because fewer customers walk through its doors. Rentals remain contractually fixed, electricity bills continue to accrue irrespective of customer traffic, municipal rates and business levies must still be paid, insurance premiums remain constant, and statutory tax obligations do not disappear simply because turnover has weakened.

Warehouses, distribution centres, refrigeration systems, delivery fleets and information technology infrastructure all represent fixed assets that continue to generate depreciation and maintenance costs whether stores are busy or nearly empty. Consequently, declining sales create a vicious operating cycle in which fixed costs consume an ever-larger proportion of revenue, compressing margins and eroding profitability.

The very infrastructure that once gave OK Zimbabwe a competitive advantage through nationwide scale becomes an increasingly expensive burden when volumes contract. In effect, the company is caught in a classic fixed-cost trap: its cost base reflects the requirements of a much larger business, while its revenues increasingly resemble those of a significantly smaller one. This explains why the financial deterioration of large formal retailers can accelerate rapidly once market share begins to migrate into the informal sector.

Unlike informal traders, who can expand or contract their businesses with relatively little capital tied up in physical assets, established supermarket chains carry substantial sunk investments whose costs continue regardless of prevailing market conditions. The loss of economies of scale therefore magnifies every other structural challenge facing formal retail, turning declining demand into a self-reinforcing cycle of rising unit costs, weakening competitiveness and further market share erosion.

Supermarkets must comply with an extensive range of statutory obligations. They pay corporate income tax, value-added tax, payroll taxes, pension contributions, local authority licences, regulatory fees, electricity tariffs, labour costs and numerous compliance expenses associated with operating within the formal economy.

Informal traders often avoid many of these obligations altogether. Their lower operating costs enable them to sell identical or similar products at prices with which formal retailers struggle to compete. The result is not simply market competition but competition between businesses operating under fundamentally different regulatory and fiscal frameworks.

Currency dynamics have further intensified these structural disadvantages.

Zimbabwe’s monetary system has become increasingly fragmented. While formal businesses continue to operate within a regulated multi-currency framework, much of the informal economy functions almost exclusively through physical United States dollar transactions. This distinction has become critically important for manufacturers, importers and wholesalers.

Many suppliers increasingly prioritise customers capable of paying immediately in cash, United States dollars. Import requirements, foreign currency obligations and exchange rate uncertainties have strengthened incentives to favour cash transactions over electronic payments or local currency settlements.

As a consequence, informal wholesalers and traders frequently secure preferential access to scarce goods, while supermarkets often experience delays in replenishing stock despite complying fully with formal financial regulations.

Consumers frequently interpret empty supermarket shelves as evidence of procurement failures or managerial incompetence. While procurement challenges certainly exist, this interpretation overlooks the economic incentives shaping supplier behaviour.

Consider a manufacturer producing limited quantities of a particular product. One customer is a supermarket paying electronically through regulated financial channels. The other is an informal wholesaler offering immediate payment in physical United States dollars. From a commercial perspective, the manufacturer’s decision is largely predetermined. Immediate access to hard currency offers greater certainty and financial flexibility.

Repeated across hundreds of manufacturers and thousands of transactions, these individual commercial decisions gradually redirect supply chains away from organised retail and towards informal distribution networks.

The problem therefore extends far beyond procurement departments. It reflects broader distortions within Zimbabwe’s monetary system.

Indeed, Zimbabwe increasingly operates with two parallel financial systems. The formal banking sector continues to process regulated transactions, while a substantial volume of commercial activity now takes place through an informal cash economy existing largely outside official financial institutions. Foreign currency circulates beyond the banking system, supply chains increasingly respond to informal liquidity, and significant portions of economic activity escape formal measurement.

Supermarkets remain anchored within the regulated financial system. Many of their competitors do not.

This divergence has profound macroeconomic implications.

Some observers may find it controversial to argue that widespread informal dollarisation has inflicted more lasting structural damage on Zimbabwe’s economy than the hyperinflation of 2008. Hyperinflation undoubtedly destroyed household savings, incomes and confidence in the domestic currency. Its economic consequences were devastating.

However, hyperinflation remained fundamentally a monetary crisis. Formal institutions largely continued to exist. Supermarkets remained the principal retail distribution channels. Manufacturers still supplied organised retailers, banks continued functioning as financial intermediaries, and commercial relationships remained largely within the formal economy, even under extraordinarily difficult conditions.

The subsequent expansion of an informal United States dollar economy has produced a different form of economic disruption.

Rather than simply destabilising prices, it has progressively weakened the institutions that organise modern market economies. Supply chains increasingly bypass formal retailers. Commercial transactions migrate outside regulated financial systems. Tax revenues become more difficult to collect. Reliable economic statistics become harder to compile. Organised retail gradually loses market share to fragmented informal distribution networks.

These changes represent institutional rather than merely monetary deterioration.

In this context, supermarkets perform functions extending far beyond the sale of groceries and household goods.

They serve as central institutions of price discovery by providing transparent and competitive pricing across thousands of products. Consumers, manufacturers and suppliers rely upon these prices as reference points for broader economic decision-making. Organised retail also coordinates extensive supply chains linking farmers, manufacturers, transport operators, wholesalers and consumers through integrated distribution systems that improve efficiency and reduce transaction costs.

Formal supermarkets enforce quality standards, product traceability, food safety regulations and packaging requirements that informal markets often struggle to maintain consistently. At the same time, they constitute one of the state’s most effective mechanisms for collecting indirect taxes and transmitting fiscal policy throughout the economy.

Perhaps most importantly, organised retailers serve as a critical transmission mechanism for monetary policy. Exchange rate movements, changes in taxation, interest rate adjustments and shifts in consumer demand are rapidly reflected through supermarket pricing, inventory management and payment systems. When economic activity migrates into fragmented informal markets, these transmission mechanisms weaken considerably.

For this reason, virtually every successful economy possesses a highly organised formal retail sector dominated by a relatively small number of large supermarket chains. These firms achieve economies of scale that enable efficient procurement, sophisticated logistics, advanced warehousing, reliable refrigeration networks and substantial purchasing power. Their operations support domestic manufacturing by providing predictable demand and coordinated distribution channels.

The gradual erosion of Zimbabwe’s supermarket sector, therefore, represents far more than the decline of individual companies. It signals the progressive informalisation of the national economy itself.

As organised retail contracts, economic activity becomes increasingly fragmented. Tax compliance weakens, quality standards become more variable, price transparency deteriorates, and policymakers lose access to reliable market signals necessary for effective economic management. Fiscal policy becomes more difficult to administer, monetary policy loses effectiveness and investment decisions become increasingly uncertain because markets no longer provide consistent price information or organised distribution systems.

Within this broader structural context, OK Zimbabwe’s difficulties become easier to understand.

The company remains concentrated within the consumer segments that have experienced the greatest erosion of purchasing power. Its stores are located in areas where informal competition is most intense. Its business model depends upon compliance with formal regulations while competing against businesses that frequently avoid many of those obligations. Its suppliers increasingly prioritise United States dollar cash transactions, while its customers have progressively migrated towards informal markets offering lower prices and greater transactional flexibility.

None of these developments necessarily reflects managerial failure. Rather, they illustrate the cumulative effects of structural economic distortions that have transformed Zimbabwe’s retail landscape over many years.

TM Pick n Pay has undoubtedly benefited from stronger market positioning. Its concentration within middle- and higher-income consumer segments provides greater resilience. Shopping mall locations shield many of their stores from direct competition with pavement vendors, while customers in these demographic groups generally possess more stable foreign currency incomes and stronger purchasing power. These advantages do not render TM immune from Zimbabwe’s economic challenges, but they have undoubtedly reduced its exposure to the structural pressures confronting OK Zimbabwe.

Ultimately, the debate surrounding OK Zimbabwe should move beyond personalities and executive appointments. Replacing management may improve operational efficiency, but it cannot by itself reverse the fragmentation of Zimbabwe’s economy.

Revitalising formal retail requires broader structural reforms that restore confidence in organised commerce, strengthen domestic supply chains, create greater currency stability, reduce regulatory asymmetries between formal and informal businesses and encourage commercial activity to return to regulated financial institutions.

The future of companies such as OK Zimbabwe is therefore inseparable from the future of Zimbabwe’s wider economy. The decline of formal supermarkets is not simply a corporate story; it is a reflection of weakening economic institutions.

Healthy supermarket chains are more than successful retailers. They are pillars of organised markets, efficient supply chains, industrial development, fiscal administration and effective monetary policy. Their decline should concern not only shareholders but also policymakers, manufacturers, financial institutions and consumers alike.

Revitalising Zimbabwe’s formal retail sector is therefore not merely about rescuing individual supermarket chains. It is about rebuilding the institutional architecture upon which productive, competitive and sustainable economic growth ultimately depends.

The post Beyond OK Zimbabwe: Why the Decline of Formal Retail Reflects Zimbabwe’s Structural Economic Crisis Rather Than Corporate Failure appeared first on The Zimbabwe Mail.

HARARE – Zimbabwe’s state-owned electricity utility, the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA), has restored power to most parts of the country following a nationwide blackout caused by a fault on a critical high-voltage transmission line, while engineers continue efforts to fully stabilise the national grid.

According to ZESA, the power outage occurred at approximately 6:24pm on Monday after a major fault developed on the Warren–Alaska 330-kilovolt transmission line, one of the country’s key electricity corridors.

The fault disrupted Zimbabwe’s interconnections with regional power suppliers, triggering voltage instability and under-frequency conditions that caused several domestic generating units to automatically shut down to protect equipment.

ZESA said electricity supplies were progressively restored through a combination of imports from South Africa’s Eskom, generation from the Kariba Hydroelectric Power Station, electricity supplied by Hydro Cahora Bassa in Mozambique, and three operational generating units at Hwange Power Station.

Power had been restored to most parts of the country by around 10:00pm, although technical teams remain engaged in synchronising the remaining generating units at Hwange with the national grid.

The utility also said repair work is continuing at the Warren Substation, a critical electricity distribution facility that supplies large parts of Harare and surrounding areas.

Grid Vulnerability Exposed

The incident highlights the vulnerability of Zimbabwe’s electricity transmission network, where faults on major transmission infrastructure can rapidly cascade into widespread system failures.

Power system experts note that modern electricity grids operate on a delicate balance between electricity generation and demand. Significant disturbances on high-voltage transmission lines can cause frequency fluctuations that automatically disconnect power stations from the grid to prevent severe damage to generating equipment.

Regional electricity interconnections have become increasingly important in maintaining grid stability, allowing neighbouring utilities to support each other during system disturbances and generation shortfalls.

Persistent Energy Challenges

The latest blackout comes as Zimbabwe continues to face long-standing challenges in the electricity sector, including ageing transmission and distribution infrastructure, periodic generation shortfalls and constrained investment in network maintenance and expansion.

The country’s electricity supply has also been affected by limited foreign currency availability to finance power imports from regional utilities during periods of domestic generation deficits.

Although generation capacity has improved following the expansion of Hwange Power Station, electricity demand continues to outpace available supply during peak consumption periods, leaving the national grid vulnerable to operational disruptions.

Industry analysts say continued investment in transmission infrastructure, grid modernisation and diversified electricity generation will be essential to improving the reliability and resilience of Zimbabwe’s power system as demand from industry, mining and households continues to grow.

ZESA has not indicated when the remaining generating units will be fully restored but said engineers are working to return the national electricity system to normal operating conditions as quickly as possible.

The post Zimbabwe Restores Electricity Following Nationwide Blackout Triggered by Transmission Line Fault appeared first on The Zimbabwe Mail.

HARARE – Zimbabwe has achieved a significant milestone in its horticultural export drive after successfully dispatching its first-ever commercial shipment of fresh blueberries to China, marking the official opening of one of the world’s largest consumer markets to the country’s high-value fruit exports.

The inaugural consignment follows the market access agreement concluded between Zimbabwe and China in 2025, which paved the way for Zimbabwean blueberry producers to enter the lucrative Asian market after meeting stringent phytosanitary and quality requirements.

The breakthrough represents another step in Zimbabwe’s strategy to diversify agricultural exports beyond traditional commodities and expand access to premium international markets.

Industry stakeholders say the development has the potential to generate increased foreign currency earnings while creating new opportunities for commercial growers and outgrower farmers participating in the country’s expanding horticulture sector.

With market access now secured, attention is shifting from regulatory approval to commercial execution. Exporters are expected to focus on increasing production volumes, strengthening compliance with Chinese import standards and identifying the most efficient logistics routes capable of delivering fresh produce within the required shelf-life.

Given the perishable nature of blueberries, the success of future exports will largely depend on reliable cold-chain infrastructure, efficient air freight services and streamlined customs procedures that preserve product quality from farm to consumer.

China is one of the world’s fastest-growing markets for premium fresh fruit, driven by rising disposable incomes, rapid urbanisation and changing consumer preferences towards healthier diets. Access to the market presents Zimbabwe with an opportunity to position itself as a counter-seasonal supplier, allowing exporters to fill supply gaps when production in other regions declines.

Agricultural economists believe the Chinese market could become an important source of export earnings if local producers are able to scale production while maintaining internationally recognised food safety and traceability standards.

The first shipment is also expected to provide valuable commercial data on transport costs, delivery timelines, product quality upon arrival and consumer acceptance. These insights will help exporters refine supply chain strategies before increasing export volumes.

The development aligns with Zimbabwe’s broader objective of expanding value-added agricultural exports, diversifying export destinations and strengthening the horticulture industry’s contribution to economic growth and foreign currency generation.

If successfully scaled, blueberry exports could complement Zimbabwe’s existing horticultural exports—including citrus, avocados, peas, flowers and macadamia nuts—and further establish the country as a competitive supplier of premium fresh produce to international markets.

For Zimbabwe’s horticulture industry, the inaugural shipment represents more than a single export consignment; it marks the beginning of a new commercial relationship with one of the world’s largest food import markets and opens fresh opportunities for investment, employment creation and export-led agricultural growth.

The post Zimbabwe Ships First Blueberry Consignment to China in Landmark Export Breakthrough appeared first on The Zimbabwe Mail.

ZESA said the outage began at 6.24PM when a fault occurred on the Warren-Alaska 330kV line

Source: ZESA restores power nationwide after fault triggers four-hour blackout – Zimbabwe News Now

The post ZESA restores power nationwide after fault triggers four-hour blackout  appeared first on Zimbabwe Situation.