When most children arrive home from school their minds turn to finishing homework or playing football. But that isn’t the case for eleven-year-old Jayden who lives in Dzivarasekwa, a township 18 kilometers west of Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare.
Three afternoons every week, he walks 4 kilometers to KwaTomu Farm hoping to collect potato rejects for his next meal. And Jayden, whose real name is being withheld, is not alone. Women and other children gather with empty sacks to scramble for the potatoes farmers throw away, because as the price of food and other essentials keep climbing their families can no longer afford to buy them. Some return home with enough to feed their families, others with little or none.
For these families, the next meal or a child’s school lunch depends on what the farm discards: it’s out of their hands.
This is not an isolated case. For millions of Zimbabweans, survival has become a full-time occupation. Some live on food others throw away, many more earn wages too meagre to live on.
Now, set this Zimbabwe lived by millions, the one lived by the 99%, against another that has recently dominated headlines and social media.
With bewilderment, the country has watched extravagant wedding celebrations of the politically connected. Their newlyweds have been showered with millions of US dollars in cash, along with lavish gifts, and properties worth millions as well.
Recently, prominent businessman Kuda Tagwirei’s son had a wedding which reportedly featured a US$2.5 million cash gift alongside 33 hectares of prime land and other gifts worth approximately US$20 million.
Wicknell Chivhayo, a Zimbabwean billionaire has reportedly committed to pay Zimbabwe’s legendary musician Thomas Mapfumo US$1.5 million for celebratory concerts. They include US$1million for a private performance at his birthday and US$500,000 for a concert at the rumored wedding of Jah Prayzah, one of Zimbabwe’s most popular artists.
No law prevents people from spending their money as they wish. However, this is wealth being spent on day’s events in a country facing severe economic challenges including endemic inflation, currency instability, and high unemployment with nearly half of its population living in extreme poverty.
Set against families scrambling for discarded potatoes, public hospitals without essential medicines, nurses and teachers earning salaries that can barely sustain their families, and young graduates unable to find decent jobs because the economy is on its knees, such extravagance takes on a different meaning.
In this setting, displays of wealth are more than personal choices. They become symbols of a society pulling apart. Zimbabwe’s inequality can no longer be explained through statistics alone. It is visible every day, in the elites flaunting lavish lifestyles while ordinary citizens struggle to afford a meal or access a clinic.
Research by Development Finance International and Norwegian Church Aid shows that Zimbabwe has one of the highest levels of wealth inequality in the world, with a wealth Gini coefficient exceeding 0.6. Behind that statistic are millions forced into impossible choices between food and school fees, transport and medicine, or pushed to loan sharks to cover ever soaring rent and energy bills while the richest 1% hoard more wealth.
The problem is not purely that some people are wealthy. The real crisis is that wealth and economic opportunities have become increasingly concentrated in the hands of the ruling elite while public services and goods continue to deteriorate.
The country is full of public hospitals with no essentials, schools without adequate learning materials and qualified teachers and cities, townships, and communities lacking access to clean portable water.
None of this should be mistaken for prosperity. These are the symptoms of a broken economic system that urgently needs fixing. An economy that rewards only a politically connected handful endangers itself, and every generation to come. It breeds frustration, erodes trust in public institutions, and deepens divisions between us.
Zimbabwe does not lack wealth. It lacks fair distribution of that wealth, accountable governance, and policies that put public wellbeing over privilege.
Closing the gap requires bold and deliberate action. We, Zimbabweans, must demand progressive taxation so the wealthy pay their fair share. Public resources must be managed transparently and spent on the services people depend on.
The fight against corruption and patronage cannot remain rhetorical; it must deliver real accountability. Economic policies should be judged not by how many they enrich, but by how much they improve the lives of the many.
Jayden’s family and millions of Zimbabweans should not have to spend their afternoons searching for discarded potatoes for a meal.
The true measure of success should not be measured by the size of the gifts we exchange at private celebrations. It should be about whether every child can go to bed well-fed, every patient can receive quality healthcare, and every citizen can live with dignity and hope.
Until we bridge that gap, the distance between the rich and the poor will remain more than an economic divide. It will also be a moral one.
Ellaine Manyere is the Fight Inequality Alliance Communications and Mobilization Officer for Zimbabwe.
Source: Zimbabwe’s Economy Must Serve Citizens, Not Just Ruling Elites – Inequality.org