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Source: Harare’s house demolitions expose a failed, corrupt land reform that enriched only a small elite

Where corruption reigns, the people suffer.

​As municipal bulldozers roll through St. Martins in Harare, reducing homes to piles of rubble, the immediate human cost is as heartbreaking as it is devastating. 
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Families stand helpless in the dust, watching their life savings turned to debris in a matter of minutes. 

While authorities routinely hide behind claims of enforcing city planning laws and clearing illegal structures, the destruction in St. Martins is not an isolated event. 
It is part of a broader, recurring pattern across the capital—from recent past demolitions in areas like Budiriro, Ridgeview, and Belvedere to the ongoing destruction today. 
These crushings do not merely point to a severe urban housing shortage or the predatory greed of politically connected land barons; they expose the fundamental failure and systemic corruption of Zimbabwe’s entire land reform program.
When land reform was launched—albeit chaotically and violently—its declared mandate was to address colonial land injustices and restore dignity to the indigenous majority by giving them land. 
Yet today, forty-six years after independence, the tragic reality is that the vast majority of Zimbabweans do not own a single piece of land, even just a few square meters to call their own.
​What we witnessed instead, since independence in 1980, were consecutive land redistribution drives that were thoroughly corrupted. 
Rather than benefiting the landless masses, most of the country’s prime land ended up in the hands of top ZANU-PF officials, senior government figures, and the military top brass.
This blatant diversion of national resources was the primary reason the British government under Tony Blair decided to pull out of financing Zimbabwe’s land program—funding originally agreed upon at the 1979 Lancaster House Conference. 
London cited the widespread misuse of millions of pounds by the Harare administration, highlighting that land meant to uplift poor, landless citizens was systematically handed to a small ruling elite.
Decades later, the statistics confirm this betrayal. 
Analysis of household data shows that approximately only 5% to 7% of Zimbabwe’s population directly received land allocations under these schemes. 
Furthermore, a disproportionate amount of highly lucrative, highly productive commercial farms under the A2 scheme went directly to political heavyweights rather than ordinary citizens.
Consequently, forty-six years after independence, millions of Zimbabweans remain entirely landless in both rural and urban areas. 
In rural communities, citizens live under customary tenure where, under Zimbabwean law, they cannot obtain title deeds, leaving them with zero security of tenure and perpetually at the mercy of the state.
Those in urban centers face an even more desperate plight. 
They are forced to purchase land even for a basic human necessity like shelter—yet urban land is in critical short supply because most of it remains locked in private, municipal, or state hands.
Had the land reform program been genuine and people-centered, surely in a country covering approximately 390,757 square kilometers—roughly the size of the US state of Montana, or about three times the size of England—ordinary Zimbabweans could easily have been allocated modest residential plots.
Instead, a privileged elite owns multiple urban properties while simultaneously holding vast, contiguous tracts of prime agricultural land. 
Official audits and investigative disclosures revealed that the former first family accumulated multiple properties totaling well over 16,000 hectares across at least 14 to 16 individual farms. 
Single holdings like Gushungo Estates in Mazowe alone measured over 4,046 hectares, flanked by neighboring properties ranging from 800 to 1,400 hectares each. 
Land audits further noted that high-ranking military commanders, cabinet ministers, and party officials secured former commercial estates averaging between 1,000 and 2,500 hectares per holding. 
This occurred despite statutory regulations like Statutory Instrument 41 of 2020, which capped maximum farm sizes from 250 hectares in prime rainfall zones up to 2,000 hectares in dry pastoral regions.
Meanwhile, ordinary Zimbabweans in urban areas cannot secure a measly 400 square meters to build a family home. 
Denied access through legitimate channels, they are left completely vulnerable to corrupt, ruling-party-linked land barons who sell them unserviced, unauthorized plots. 
The inevitable result is the devastating scene currently unfolding in St. Martins. 
The rubble in St. Martins is a tragic monument to a grand promise betrayed by a land reform program that stripped land from the colonial past only to concentrate it in the hands of a new elite. 
It leaves ordinary citizens homeless in their own country.
Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. Please feel free to contact him on +263715667700 or mbofana.tendairuben73@gmail.com

The post Harare’s house demolitions expose a failed, corrupt land reform that enriched only a small elite appeared first on Zimbabwe Situation.

Source: Is Zimbabweans’ unhealthy obsession with university degrees making our children unemployable?

Too often, we are our own worst enemies.

Today, over seven thousand young men and women step onto the graduation stage at the University of Zimbabwe, capped, gowned, and brimming with hope. 
To directly receive my articles please join my WhatsApp Channel on: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaqprWCIyPtRnKpkHe08
It is a moment of intense pride for parents who have sacrificed everything, and for a nation that appears to be continually investing in its future. 

Yet, behind the celebratory speeches, family photos, and social media posts lies a tragic reality that few are willing to confront honestly. 
In an economy where formal unemployment hovers above ninety percent, an estimated thirty thousand graduates leave our tertiary institutions every year only to step directly into an economic void. 
Most end up selling goods on street corners, surviving in the informal sector, joining an already suffocated civil service, or fleeing the country to take up menial work far removed from their academic qualifications.
We rightly point fingers at a stagnant economy that grows on paper while failing to create meaningful opportunities for its youth. 
We condemn systemic mismanagement, lack of industrialization, and policy failures that have turned our formal job market into a ghost town. 
But in focusing solely on state failure, we ignore a far more uncomfortable truth that sits squarely in our own living rooms. 
Are we, as parents, mentors, and a society, not also our own worst enemies?
Have we not succumbed to an uncritical, outdated, and ultimately self-destructive obsession with university degrees that actively sabotages the real economic prospects of our children?
Our blind reverence for higher education is a lingering ghost of post-independence mobility. 
After 1980, a university degree was the undisputed ticket out of poverty, offering guaranteed entry into the corporate suite or senior civil service. 
Decades later, even as the economic foundation supporting that promise has completely collapsed, our national mindset remains trapped in the past. 
We have built an unwritten social hierarchy where a theoretical degree, regardless of its relevance to the market, is prized as the ultimate marker of human worth and intelligence.
Our leaders’ disturbing fixation with displaying PhDs only reinforces this obsession.
 
Conversely, practical training, polytechnicals, and vocational trades are unfairly branded as consolation prizes for those who somehow failed along the way. 
We treat education not as a practical toolkit to solve tangible problems, but as a gospel that automatically creates prosperity out of thin air.
This obsession reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of what a university is actually designed to do. 
Higher education is built to foster theoretical research, policy analysis, and abstract critical thinking. 
It was never meant to be a universal trade school or an automatic factory for job generation. 
When an economy is crippled and formal employment is scarce, what a nation urgently requires are practical operators, technicians, producers, and builders.
People capable of creating immediate value, running machinery, installing renewable energy systems, modernizing agriculture, and manufacturing goods. 
By channeling tens of thousands of young people into four-year theoretical degree programs that yield no practical, market-ready skills, we are guilty of issuing paper credentials that carry zero currency in the real world.
If we look at developed nations, we quickly realize that this degree-or-bust mentality is far from universal. 
In economic powerhouses like Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, university is not viewed as the supreme or only honorable path. 
Around half of school leavers in Germany enter the renowned dual vocational education system, splitting their time between paid workplace training at private enterprises and specialized classroom instruction. 
Skilled technicians, master carpenters, precision machinists, and industrial mechanics earn respected middle-class incomes and command immense societal respect. 
Even in the United States and the United Kingdom, where university inflation once reigned supreme, a sharp reality check is underway. 
Rising tuition costs have made the younger generation far more pragmatic. 
Major global corporations are systematically stripping away degree requirements from job descriptions, choosing instead to hire based on demonstrated skill, portfolios, and practical bootcamps.
Yet in Zimbabwe, parents routinely sacrifice life savings, liquidate family assets, and incur crippling debt to pay thousands of dollars in university fees for programs that offer virtually no domestic career path. 
We would rather boast to our neighbors that our child holds a degree in political science or general administration while they sit idle at home, than support them in becoming a certified electrician, a commercial farmer, or a skilled automotive diagnostician who earns daily cash flow. 
This is a profound cultural disconnect. 
It is time to dismantle the toxic stigma attached to vocational and technical education. 
We must align learning with the real economy around us—focusing aggressively on agricultural technology, mining infrastructure, digital skills, and practical engineering. 
We must stop treating university degrees as badges of nobility and start valuing actionable skills that build businesses.
Otherwise, we will keep sending our children down a polished path to nowhere.
Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. Please feel free to contact him on +263715667700 or mbofana.tendairuben73@gmail.com

The post Is Zimbabweans’ unhealthy obsession with university degrees making our children unemployable? appeared first on Zimbabwe Situation.

Source: Is Zimbabweans’ unhealthy obsession with university degrees making our children unemployable?

Too often, we are our own worst enemies.

Today, over seven thousand young men and women step onto the graduation stage at the University of Zimbabwe, capped, gowned, and brimming with hope. 
To directly receive my articles please join my WhatsApp Channel on: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaqprWCIyPtRnKpkHe08
It is a moment of intense pride for parents who have sacrificed everything, and for a nation that appears to be continually investing in its future. 

Yet, behind the celebratory speeches, family photos, and social media posts lies a tragic reality that few are willing to confront honestly. 
In an economy where formal unemployment hovers above ninety percent, an estimated thirty thousand graduates leave our tertiary institutions every year only to step directly into an economic void. 
Most end up selling goods on street corners, surviving in the informal sector, joining an already suffocated civil service, or fleeing the country to take up menial work far removed from their academic qualifications.
We rightly point fingers at a stagnant economy that grows on paper while failing to create meaningful opportunities for its youth. 
We condemn systemic mismanagement, lack of industrialization, and policy failures that have turned our formal job market into a ghost town. 
But in focusing solely on state failure, we ignore a far more uncomfortable truth that sits squarely in our own living rooms. 
Are we, as parents, mentors, and a society, not also our own worst enemies?
Have we not succumbed to an uncritical, outdated, and ultimately self-destructive obsession with university degrees that actively sabotages the real economic prospects of our children?
Our blind reverence for higher education is a lingering ghost of post-independence mobility. 
After 1980, a university degree was the undisputed ticket out of poverty, offering guaranteed entry into the corporate suite or senior civil service. 
Decades later, even as the economic foundation supporting that promise has completely collapsed, our national mindset remains trapped in the past. 
We have built an unwritten social hierarchy where a theoretical degree, regardless of its relevance to the market, is prized as the ultimate marker of human worth and intelligence.
Our leaders’ disturbing fixation with displaying PhDs only reinforces this obsession.
 
Conversely, practical training, polytechnicals, and vocational trades are unfairly branded as consolation prizes for those who somehow failed along the way. 
We treat education not as a practical toolkit to solve tangible problems, but as a gospel that automatically creates prosperity out of thin air.
This obsession reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of what a university is actually designed to do. 
Higher education is built to foster theoretical research, policy analysis, and abstract critical thinking. 
It was never meant to be a universal trade school or an automatic factory for job generation. 
When an economy is crippled and formal employment is scarce, what a nation urgently requires are practical operators, technicians, producers, and builders.
People capable of creating immediate value, running machinery, installing renewable energy systems, modernizing agriculture, and manufacturing goods. 
By channeling tens of thousands of young people into four-year theoretical degree programs that yield no practical, market-ready skills, we are guilty of issuing paper credentials that carry zero currency in the real world.
If we look at developed nations, we quickly realize that this degree-or-bust mentality is far from universal. 
In economic powerhouses like Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, university is not viewed as the supreme or only honorable path. 
Around half of school leavers in Germany enter the renowned dual vocational education system, splitting their time between paid workplace training at private enterprises and specialized classroom instruction. 
Skilled technicians, master carpenters, precision machinists, and industrial mechanics earn respected middle-class incomes and command immense societal respect. 
Even in the United States and the United Kingdom, where university inflation once reigned supreme, a sharp reality check is underway. 
Rising tuition costs have made the younger generation far more pragmatic. 
Major global corporations are systematically stripping away degree requirements from job descriptions, choosing instead to hire based on demonstrated skill, portfolios, and practical bootcamps.
Yet in Zimbabwe, parents routinely sacrifice life savings, liquidate family assets, and incur crippling debt to pay thousands of dollars in university fees for programs that offer virtually no domestic career path. 
We would rather boast to our neighbors that our child holds a degree in political science or general administration while they sit idle at home, than support them in becoming a certified electrician, a commercial farmer, or a skilled automotive diagnostician who earns daily cash flow. 
This is a profound cultural disconnect. 
It is time to dismantle the toxic stigma attached to vocational and technical education. 
We must align learning with the real economy around us—focusing aggressively on agricultural technology, mining infrastructure, digital skills, and practical engineering. 
We must stop treating university degrees as badges of nobility and start valuing actionable skills that build businesses.
Otherwise, we will keep sending our children down a polished path to nowhere.
Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. Please feel free to contact him on +263715667700 or mbofana.tendairuben73@gmail.com

The post Is Zimbabweans’ unhealthy obsession with university degrees making our children unemployable? appeared first on Zimbabwe Situation.

Lake Kariba ferry disaster: 44 victims named as death toll reaches 46 Zimbabwean police have released the names of 44 people who died when a Rural Infrastructure Development Agency boat capsized on Lake Kariba, leaving families to identify relatives among the dead while recovery teams continue searching the vast reservoir. The disaster happened on August […]

The post Here are names and ages of 46 people who died in Lake Kariba Ferry accident: The hidden crisis facing Zimbabwe first appeared on My Zimbabwe News.

HARARE — Zimplats has delivered a broad-based increase in platinum group metals and base-metal production, underscoring the growing operational contribution of Zimbabwe’s Great Dyke to global supplies of strategic and precious metals.

Zimbabwe’s largest platinum group metals producer increased production across most of its key commodities in the quarter ended June 30, 2026, with platinum, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium and iridium all recording double-digit year-on-year growth.

The strongest performance was recorded in the company’s combined 6E platinum group metals basket, comprising platinum, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium and gold, which increased 14 percent to 213,190 ounces.

Platinum production rose 14 percent to 97,950 ounces, while palladium increased 15 percent to 84,035 ounces. Gold output was up 4 percent at 10,570 ounces and rhodium production advanced 10 percent to 9,058 ounces.

Ruthenium was among the fastest-growing metals, with output rising 24 percent to 7,867 ounces, while iridium production increased 29 percent to 3,710 ounces.

The performance points to a significant improvement in the overall metal recovery profile of Zimplats’ operations compared with the corresponding quarter of 2025.

Base metals add to production gains

The improvement was not confined to PGMs. Nickel production increased 6 percent year-on-year to 2,030 tonnes, while copper output rose 5 percent to 1,539 tonnes.

The performance is strategically important because Zimplats is increasingly operating as a diversified metals producer rather than simply a platinum miner. Its ore bodies contain PGMs alongside nickel, copper, cobalt, gold and silver, allowing the company to capture value across several commodity markets.

The company operates an integrated mining and processing complex along the Great Dyke, with mines and concentrator facilities at Ngezi and additional processing and smelting infrastructure at the Selous Metallurgical Complex.

However, production was not uniformly higher across the portfolio. Silver output declined 2 percent to 20,467 ounces, while cobalt recorded the sharpest contraction, falling 30 percent year-on-year.

The contrasting performance illustrates the geological and metallurgical variability inherent in polymetallic mining, where changes in ore composition, recoveries and processing conditions can produce significantly different outcomes between individual metals.

Operational performance remains central

A mining analyst told The Zimbabwe Financial Mail that the headline 6E growth was more significant than the performance of any single metal because it demonstrated broader improvement across the production chain.

“An increase of 14 percent in 6E production is commercially significant because it indicates that the improvement is not dependent on one commodity alone. The combination of higher platinum and palladium output, alongside strong growth in the other PGMs, points to better utilisation of the underlying mining and processing system,” the analyst said.

The analyst said the base-metal numbers were equally important for understanding the economics of the operation.

“Nickel and copper provide additional revenue streams from the same ore body. Their growth means Zimplats is extracting greater value from its mineral resource rather than viewing the asset purely through a platinum lens,” the analyst said.

Great Dyke remains a strategic asset

Zimplats’ performance also reinforces the strategic significance of the Great Dyke, one of the world’s major PGM-bearing geological formations. The company’s operations span Ngezi and Selous and form an integrated mining, concentrating and smelting chain.

That vertical integration is particularly important in an industry where processing capacity, recoveries and metallurgical efficiency can determine how much value is ultimately extracted from mined ore.

Zimplats has historically expanded its Ngezi operations from open-pit mining into large-scale underground production, with the operation now incorporating multiple underground mines and processing facilities.

For Zimbabwe, higher production also has implications beyond the company’s own financial performance. PGMs remain among the country’s most important mineral exports, while greater production of associated metals creates opportunities to deepen domestic mineral processing and increase the value captured from the country’s mineral resources.

Growth comes amid changing metals markets

The latest production figures come as the global metals industry undergoes structural changes driven by energy transition, tighter environmental standards and increasing demand for minerals used in industrial and clean-technology applications.

PGMs remain important in automotive emissions-control systems and have potential applications in hydrogen technologies, while nickel and copper are strategically important across electrification and industrial infrastructure.

The analyst said this makes Zimplats’ production mix increasingly relevant to Zimbabwe’s long-term mining strategy.

“The real opportunity for Zimbabwe is not simply producing more tonnes of ore. It is increasing recoveries, processing more of the mineral basket locally and developing downstream industries around the metals already being extracted,” the analyst said.

For Zimplats, the latest quarter provides evidence that operational improvements can translate into higher metal output across a diversified production portfolio.

But sustaining that growth will depend on mine productivity, plant availability, ore grades, recovery rates and the company’s ability to maintain reliable processing infrastructure as it seeks to maximise the value of one of Zimbabwe’s most important mineral assets.

With 6E production up 14 percent and increases recorded across most of its principal metals, Zimplats enters the new financial year with a stronger operational base and further evidence of the production potential embedded in Zimbabwe’s Great Dyke.

The post Zimplats delivers broad-based production growth as Great Dyke operations strengthen appeared first on The Zimbabwe Mail.