Tendai Ruben Mbofana
No one can deny that our public healthcare infrastructure was in desperate need of an overhaul.
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For years, these institutions had become an eyesore due to their severely dilapidated state.
Indeed, it had become deeply embarrassing to witness long peeled structures, leaking roofs, and falling ceilings in our primary referral hospital.
This physical decay was not just ugly to look at.
It had also become a huge disincentive for healthcare workers who were forced to work under degrading, unsafe conditions every single day.
But is that what we truly need at the moment?
Our public healthcare institutions are woefully under-resourced.
They are lacking even the most basic medications and lifesaving equipment.
This acute shortage leads directly to the needless deaths of thousands of ordinary citizens, particularly those who cannot afford expensive private care.
When a mother arrives at a clinic, she does not need a newly painted wall.
She needs basic pain relievers, antibiotics, gloves, and operational diagnostic tools.
So shouldn’t that be the government’s top priority rather than applying a fresh coat of paint to our hospitals?
Is human life not infinitely more important than the optics of a building?
Why is the government focusing more on paint than pills?
Perhaps the nature of the company awarded the tender can tell us the answer.
Prevail Group, owned by tenderpreneur Paul Tungwarara, is certainly no stranger to controversy.
The firm has repeatedly made headlines over questionable public sector deals.
Consider the controversial presidential borehole drilling initiative, where millions were channeled into contracts that raised serious questions about transparency and value for money.
Consider the multi-million-dollar precast wall project at State House, alongside other lucrative government contracts awarded without open, competitive scrutiny.
Time and again, the same names surface whenever massive state expenditures occur.
As such, can we not conclude that this hospital rehabilitation program has more to do with self-aggrandizement for the ruling elite than about saving lives?
Tenders for physical construction and cosmetic repairs offer high margins and immediate visual public relations.
They create quick, lucrative opportunities for political patrons and their favored contractors.
Medicines and medical consumables, by contrast, require continuous, quiet, and unglamorous investment.
They do not leave behind a permanent concrete monument with a politician’s name on it, but they keep human beings alive.
Isn’t it time our leaders prioritized the lives of ordinary citizens over their own enrichment?
A hospital is not merely a collection of painted walls and intact ceilings.
A hospital is a place of healing.
When the pharmacy shelves inside are completely bare, fresh paint on the outside is nothing more than a cruel facade.
A beautiful-looking building is well and good, but it becomes entirely useless when impoverished Zimbabweans leave it in coffins.
We must demand a government that values human dignity over optics, and life over profit.
- Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. Please feel free to contact him on +263715667700 or mbofana.tendairuben73@gmail.com