Mr. Mnangagwa, please let’s tell the world the truth about Zimbabwe’s poverty crisis

When I read the news this morning that President Emmerson Mnangagwa had told world leaders gathered in Qatar that Zimbabwe had “halved its poverty rate since 1995,” I felt deeply disturbed.

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Such statements may sound impressive on the international stage, but they are far removed from the painful reality that millions of Zimbabweans live each day.

What made his remarks even more troubling was his decision to quote 2019 statistics — which put poverty levels at 38.3% — to suggest that the plight of Zimbabweans had improved since 1995, even though we are now in 2025, six years later.

Why rely on outdated data when newer, more credible global figures are available?

The answer is simple: the current numbers would expose the embarrassing truth about Zimbabwe’s worsening poverty.

According to one estimate from Reall, 72% of Zimbabweans live below the poverty line.

That is a higher proportion than the 62 percent in 1995 — the very year Mnangagwa used as his baseline.

The Borgen Project states that as of April 2025, approximately 60% of Zimbabwe’s population lived on less than US$3.65 a day, which is classified as extreme poverty, placing the country among the most impoverished in Southern Africa.

So, rather than cutting poverty in half, Zimbabwe has sunk to its worst levels since independence.

If anything, his government has presided over the deepening impoverishment of our people while trying to mask this failure behind lofty Vision 2030 rhetoric.

President Mnangagwa also bragged about the government’s Basic Education Assistance Module (BEAM), claiming that over 1.5 million children from poor families were receiving help with school fees.

Yet he conveniently ignored the fact that the BEAM program has virtually collapsed under his administration.

Thousands of children have dropped out of school because the Treasury has failed to release the funds needed to keep the program running.

In August this year, the Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister, Edgar Moyo, admitted in Parliament that Treasury had not paid BEAM funds since the beginning of 2023.

Schools were left in financial distress.

He said Treasury had released only ZiG40 million this year — and that was just to clear arrears for special institutions such as Jairos Jiri, St. Giles, Sibantubanye and M. Hugo School for the Blind.

Ordinary schools that educate the bulk of Zimbabwe’s poor have been left to fend for themselves.

Some reports have even alleged that funds earmarked for BEAM were diverted to preparations for last year’s SADC Summit hosted by Zimbabwe.

If that is true, then our government chose prestige over children’s education — a shameful indictment of its priorities.

This is the same administration that boasts of “social justice, economic empowerment, and equality,” yet it cannot pay the school fees of the poorest children.

Mnangagwa’s claims of “social justice and inclusivity” sound hollow when measured against the grim state of our public health sector.

Thousands of poor Zimbabweans continue to die every year from treatable conditions simply because hospitals lack everything — from basic medicines and diagnostic tests to ambulances and life-saving equipment.

Just yesterday, I was speaking with a war veteran friend whose wife was diagnosed with breast cancer.

They had to take her to South Africa because there were no functioning radiotherapy machines in Zimbabwe.

He told me that a specialist in Harare had even warned them not to use the few machines available at a major hospital because many in the medical field doubted whether they were still working properly.

Imagine being told that life-saving equipment might actually harm your loved one.

That is the terrifying reality of Zimbabwe’s “inclusive” health system.

My own mother passed away from cancer a month ago because I could not afford private health care.

The public hospitals where ordinary citizens like me turn for help could not offer the diagnostic tests she needed.

Every test had to be paid for privately, and the most crucial ones — such as CT scans — were simply beyond my reach.

So when President Mnangagwa claims that his administration prioritises social justice and equality, I cannot help but ask: what justice is this, and for whom?

The president also repeated his usual refrain that Zimbabwe’s economic progress is being undermined by “restricted access to international capital, climate-induced shocks, and unilateral sanctions.”

That narrative has become a convenient excuse for every failure.

It’s true that Zimbabwe’s GDP growth has been among the fastest in the region — projected at around 6.6 percent this year — but growth figures mean little when ordinary people’s lives are deteriorating.

Who among us can honestly say their household income, diet, or access to health and education have improved in line with the country’s so-called growth?

The truth is, while GDP has risen, poverty has worsened.

If our economy is really expanding, where is the wealth going?

Who is benefiting?

Sanctions do not steal wealth already created.

They do not empty hospitals of medicine or leave classrooms without textbooks.

Corruption does.

The uncomfortable truth that Mnangagwa never dares to tell the world is that the real sanctions on Zimbabwe are not imposed from abroad — they are home-grown, in the form of a corrupt political elite that has captured the state.

Over the years, we have seen the rise of a new class of tenderpreneurs — the so-called Zvigananda — who have become obscenely wealthy through inflated and often fraudulent government tenders.

Many of them receive multi-million-dollar contracts without following proper procedures, sometimes failing to deliver anything at all.

This is where the country’s wealth is going — siphoned off by a few connected individuals while hospitals crumble, children drop out of school, and families go hungry.

These people are the real sanctions strangling Zimbabwe.

The billions of dollars lost to corruption could have transformed our nation — funding hospitals, paying teachers, providing free primary education, and upgrading our power and water systems.

Yet year after year, the government turns a blind eye to the looting while ordinary citizens are told to tighten their belts and “sacrifice for the nation.”

When the president stands before world leaders and paints a rosy picture of Zimbabwe’s progress, he is not only misleading them — he is betraying his own people.

If our country were truly thriving, he would have proudly shared the latest statistics, not cherry-picked figures from six years ago.

The deliberate avoidance of current data speaks volumes.

It tells the world that Zimbabwe’s leadership knows the situation is dire but would rather hide behind carefully crafted speeches than confront the truth.

What the world needs to know is that Zimbabwe is in crisis — a crisis authored not by sanctions or droughts but by misgovernance, corruption, and misplaced priorities.

It is a crisis where the poor are forgotten, where promises of empowerment mask the enrichment of the powerful, and where “inclusive growth” is nothing more than a slogan for international consumption.

Until the government is willing to speak honestly about the country’s true condition — and act decisively to tackle corruption, strengthen social protection, and rebuild essential services — Zimbabwe’s poverty will not decline.

It will deepen.

And no amount of statistics from 2019 can change that truth.

• Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. Please feel free to WhatsApp or Call: +263715667700 | +263782283975, or email: mbofana.tendairuben73@gmail.com, or visit website: https://mbofanatendairuben.news.blog/