The Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development (Zimcodd) has launched a new index that exposed deep structural failures on inequality and the governance of Zimbabwe’s vast mineral wealth.
The launch of the Commitment To Reducing Inequality (CRI) index in Zimbabwe at a Zimcodd forum comes at a time when leakages in precious minerals such as gold and diamonds are rising.
The Zimcodd forum, which featured lawmakers, civil society groups and government ministry representatives, underscored a central conflict that the nation's rich extractive resources are failing to translate to inclusive development and dignified life for citizens, particularly those in mining communities. Parliament representative and legislator Edwin Mushoriwa cited an outdated legal framework, regressive taxation and institutionalised corruption as key drivers of the country's growing wealth gap.
“One of the major challenges that we have is that, as a country, our taxation system is regressive in nature in the sense that we tend to tax the poor more than we tax the rich. Zimbabwe has failed to correct the taxes; the poor person pays IMTT [intermediated money transfer tax], VAT [value added tax], excise duty and all that other stuff.
“The major challenge we have faced as a Parliament is that year in, year out, we've been passing budgets, but Treasury has been going out there to rewrite the budget and the disbursement matrix does not in any way relate to the budget that we will have passed as Parliament,” Mushoriwa said.
He said as they prepared for the 2026 national budget, the desire of legislators was to make sure citizens benefit from their natural resources and that everything that Parliament did was aligned with the laws.
Tanaka Ndongera of the Centre for Natural Resource Governance said new ventures, often branded as “green mining”, still resulted in communities being displaced from their ancestral homes without consultation or fair compensation. The major focus of the discussion was the devastating impact of mining operations on locals and the perceived impunity of foreign investors.
“We always say, you know, justice and dignity for communities affected by the extractive industries, and if you look at our thematic areas, one of the thematic areas is on gender and extractives, because we understand and see how, obviously, women are much more affected by the mining industry.
- Zimcodd index exposes inequality
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“We have witnessed the issue around what they are now naming green mining, you know, to try to portray that mining is good, but at the end of the day, we see how communities are displaced. Recently, I know you have seen what has been happening within the Manhize steel plant. Our communities have been displaced from their ancestral homes,” she said.
Ndongera called for immediate legislative reform, pushing for the new Mining Bill to include climate change indicators, arguing that the mining industry is the largest contributor to climate change in the country.
Joyce Nyamukonda of the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Organisation tackled the legal shortcomings, pointing out that mineral extraction is still governed by the colonial-era 1962 Mines and Minerals Act, which overwhelmingly favours investors.
While the Environmental Management Act provides protective mechanisms like environmental impact assessments, Nyamukonda noted that they have become a box-ticking process.
“You'll find that our mineral extraction and governance is mainly governed by an Act of 1962, which is the Mines and Minerals Act. l know there are efforts to come up with a Mines Bill, but not really like the reform of the Mines Act.
“As it has several clauses that haven't been favourable to our citizens. It has mainly been favouring the investors who are the ones that actually come and extract, so, since we gained our independence, we gained our independence, but the system didn't change.
“We have the coming in of the Mines Bill that is trying to address some of the issues around transparency and accountability, issues of how communities actually benefit, but on the other hand, we actually have the laws that also help to protect the communities,” she said.
Zimcodd director John Maketo said inequality was not an abstract but a lived reality in Zimbabwe and Africa.
“Zimbabwe is constantly ranked among the most unequal countries globally, with an index of 0,6, with public spending in Zimbabwe reducing inequality by just 1%. Looking at the trends of inequality, you will see that inequality in Zimbabwe has worsened significantly, with the top 10% of income earners receiving over 52% of the national income, so the cake is not distributed equitably,” he said.
