TRANSPARENCY International Zimbabwe (TIZ) has flagged the mining sector as the country’s most corruption-prone industry, citing secrecy, weak disclosure frameworks and opaque contracting practices that continue to entrench graft across the extractive sector.
The warning comes as Zimbabwe scored 22 out of 100 on the 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), a marginal increase from 21 in 2024 but still far below the Sub-Saharan Africa regional average of 32, underscoring persistent governance weaknesses and limited accountability in key sectors of the economy.
Speaking during the virtual launch of the 2025 CPI, TIZ director Tafadzwa Chikumbu said the organisation’s corruption risk mapping exercise identified mining as highly vulnerable due to limited public access to information and undisclosed contracts.
“The mining sector is prone to corruption because it is highly opaque,” he said. “Most of the activities that happen in that sector are not normally revealed to the public.”
Chikumbu said mining contracts in Zimbabwe were largely not disclosed and, where they were made public, often contained secrecy clauses that restricted meaningful scrutiny.
“It is one sector where even the mining contracts are not disclosed and where they are disclosed, they embed secrecy clauses which identify certain elements of the contract as secretive,” he said.
Chikumbu also noted that corruption was worsening globally amid a decline in bold leadership to tackle graft, adding that even established democracies were weakening standards and enforcement.
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He further pointed to corruption linked to land allocation, particularly in the acquisition of residential and industrial land in urban areas.
Beyond mining, TIZ raised concern over rising corruption in service delivery sectors, especially health and public education, including higher and tertiary institutions.
“For people to access health services, there are a lot of illegal fees that are paid,” Chikumbu said.
“Our research confirmed widespread corruption in that sector. The same applies to the public education sector, from elementary level to tertiary institutions, where access to school placements and training institutions is often compromised by corruption.”
Meanwhile, the National Prosecuting Authority of Zimbabwe has blamed defence lawyers for delays in prosecuting complex corruption cases.
Deputy prosecutor-general Nelson Mutsonziwa said while petty corruption cases were concluded quickly, grand corruption matters took longer due to their complexity and litigation tactics by accused persons.
“Petty corruption cases don't take time,” he said. “But complex corruption cases take a bit longer when you are prosecuting them because in most cases, persons involved hire teams of lawyers that bring up a lot of issues during trials and that contributes to a slow progress of a case is not the State that delays. It is the accused and their lawyers who bring up a lot of applications during trials.”
He added that there were no cases that had stalled due to inaction by the prosecution.
In a statement, TIZ acknowledged government efforts to combat corruption, including the establishment of specialised anti-corruption courts and measures aimed at domestic recovery of stolen assets.
However, the watchdog said more needed to be done to address the transnational nature of corruption and illicit financial flows.
“These efforts must be strengthened through more robust asset recovery from other jurisdictions, enhanced mutual legal assistance and stronger co-operation with international partners to trace, freeze and repatriate stolen public resources,” the statement read.
TIZ warned that corruption in the management of public resources was restricting access to essential services and disproportionately affecting poor and marginalised communities.
“These impacts are deepening inequality and eroding public trust in State institutions,” the organisation said.
An official from the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, Lloyd Kabara, said progress was being made towards crafting legislation to strengthen whistleblower protections.
He said Justice minister Ziyambi Ziyambi had recommended that the Whistleblowers Protection Bill be placed on Parliament’s legislative agenda this year.
“We hope that by the end of this parliamentary year, the Whistleblowers Bill will be made into law,” Kabara said.
“It is Parliament’s prerogative to make laws, not the Executive. The Executive only suggests laws. If witnesses are protected, then whistleblowers are protected. People will then be in a position to speak out about corruption without fear.”
