This country has perfected a dangerous culture in the way it manages its faltering economy.
In many ways, it wants to create the impression that its rulers are reformists. It preaches reform, but practises shocking levels of extraction. Over many years of financial reporting, I have watched every crisis being manipulated into another opportunity to squeeze businesses and citizens already operating and living on the edge of collapse.
That is because the government itself has become synonymous with deception.
Left unchecked and rarely held to account, every shock has turned into a justification for new taxes, levies, charges and fresh burdens.
Our recent reporting exposing Zimbabwe’s imposition of Africa’s steepest fuel price increases during this round of Middle East shocks reveals a nation trapped in tragedy. What we are witnessing is not a fuel crisis, but a system that appears structurally wired against productivity, competitiveness and survival.
How does a country that imports fuel through the same regional routes as its neighbours end up charging the highest prices in southern Africa? How does fuel leave South Africa, pass through Zimbabwe and end up cheaper in Zambia? Something is fundamentally broken.
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But explanations are familiar. Authorities blame global oil prices, sanctions, geopolitical tensions, currency instability and lack of multilateral support. Some of those factors are real, but they do not fully explain why Zimbabwe consistently emerges as one of the most expensive and hostile economies.
The problem is Zimbabwe has built an economy where those controlling the system often benefit more from instability than stability. The state and politically-connected elites have entrenched themselves in virtually every strategic sector. They are regulators, players, referees and beneficiaries, all at once. In such an environment, markets stop functioning, and pricing stops reflecting efficiency, but extraction.
The result is an economy where ordinary citizens and formal businesses carry unbearable costs so that a small network can continue accumulating obscene wealth.
With the benefit of hindsight, I can safely say during the first years of dollarisation, Zimbabwe imposed interest rates of up to 44% — among the highest in the region. But companies were desperately trying to recover from meltdown.
A full chicken inexplicably cost almost double regional prices. Zimbabwe became one of Africa’s most expensive economies despite having lower incomes, lower productivity and weaker infrastructure than most of its peers.
Today, companies still face punishing borrowing costs, crippling taxes, endless policy shifts and expensive utilities. Formal retailers are collapsing, and industries are scaling down. Yet the cost structures imposed on business continue rising. We cannot build a productive economy by punishing production itself.
This fuel pricing boob exposes the contradiction perfectly. The government claims to support industry, yet its pricing structures are suffocating industry. Authorities speak endlessly about attracting investment but investors study Zimbabwe’s cost environment and flee. Policymakers preach competitiveness while presiding over one of the least competitive markets in Africa.
No serious economy survives like this, but the tragedy is that Zimbabwe possesses enormous advantages. It has mineral wealth, fertile land, educated citizens and strategic geographic positioning. Few countries in the region possess such potential, but potential means nothing when policy continuously destroys confidence.
The bigger danger is psychological. Zimbabweans are slowly being conditioned to normalise abnormality. We are expected to celebrate minor price reductions after massive increases. We are told to endure some of the highest costs in the region as though suffering itself is patriotic.
A country cannot tax, overprice and overregulate itself into prosperity. An economy cannot survive when productive citizens are treated primarily as revenue streams. At some point, the government must decide whether it wants a functioning economy or a predatory one.
Right now, too many Zimbabweans are asking the same question: Is this incompetence, or is the suffering itself part of the business model?