OVER the past few years, the government has imposed a range of health-related taxes, including the 5% airtime and mobile data levy, the more recent tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, as well as a portion of alcohol excise duty.
Many assumed these funds would be channelled towards improving access to quality health care, in line with the administration’s stated vision of attaining upper middle-income status by 2030.
That expectation has, however, not been met. Instead, the funds have largely failed to strengthen a public health system that has been in a state of prolonged and near-perpetual decay.
It is for this reason that legislators, during debates on the 2025 Finance Bill, called for the ring-fencing of revenues raised from health-related taxes and levies. They could not have been more justified. History is firmly on their side.
The government has consistently fallen short on transparency and candour in matters involving public finances, reinforcing public suspicion that money raised from these taxes and levies may well be diverted to other areas of expenditure unrelated to health.
Meanwhile, chronic shortages of essential drugs, the absence of critical medical equipment and decaying infrastructure across public health institutions have steadily eroded public confidence in a system meant to serve the poorest and most vulnerable.
The elite, including the politically connected, seek care at expensive private facilities or foreign hospitals, seemingly insulated from the daily anguish of ordinary citizens struggling to access even basic medical services.
While Zimbabwe’s economic fragility is undeniable, funding public health services remains a core responsibility of the state.
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This obligation has become even more pressing following the United States’ withdrawal of certain forms of aid last year, which placed additional strain on the country’s health budget and made domestic funding of the sector unavoidable.
Yet, in a striking irony, the government is in overdrive publicising a catalogue of achievements presented as evidence that the country is firmly on track to becoming an upper middle-income economy by 2030.
This is a vision many Zimbabweans would welcome, but one they wish to see reflected in lived realities rather than glossy reports. It is difficult to reconcile such optimism with hospitals that lack essential medicines and critical equipment such as cancer treatment and dialysis machines.
Transparency and sincerity are indispensable to building public trust. The government’s longstanding deficiencies in both risk consigning public health services to yet another entry in Zimbabwe’s tragic catalogue of institutional failure.
The Ministry of Finance must heed the voices of reason and agree to ring-fence funds raised from health-related taxes.
Our public hospitals are in a dire state, mirroring the condition of much of the country’s key infrastructure - all victims of decades of calculated neglect.
