Tendai Ruben Mbofana
Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube recently took to social media to celebrate a projected record current account surplus exceeding US$3 billion.
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He praised this figure as evidence of macroeconomic stability, sustained growth, and improved access to financing.
But as ordinary citizens read those triumphant words, a single, agonizing question echoed across the nation.
What does a surplus on paper mean to a population living in profound physical and economic distress?
How can a country lay claim to a staggering multi-billion-dollar surplus when it cannot even ensure its own people are fed?
The depth of state neglect was laid bare when Speaker of Parliament Jacob Mudenda arrogantly instructed citizens to ditch their staple sadza and eat porridge to stretch their meager mealie-meal supplies.
In a stunning display of detachment, Mudenda admitted that relying on the government fiscus alone would leave people to die of hunger, effectively absolving the state of its fundamental duty to protect its citizens.
This systemic failure extends far beyond the dining table and into every pillar of public life.
In public hospitals across the country, patients are met with empty shelves instead of care.
Basic, life-saving necessities—from paracetamol and essential antibiotics to simple hospital beds—are routinely unavailable.
Countless Zimbabweans suffer needless, premature deaths simply because they cannot afford the exorbitant costs of private healthcare.
The crisis is no less severe in our public education system.
Underfunded and abandoned, schools watch children, particularly in rural communities, huddle under trees or inside dilapidated, unsafe structures for lessons.
They lack basic learning tools: no textbooks, no desks, no chairs, and no science laboratories to equip them for the modern world.
In our urban centers, tap water has become a distant memory.
Towns and cities that once enjoyed reliable municipal water systems have endured years of dry pipes, stripping citizens of a basic human right.
Millions are reduced to queuing for hours at communal boreholes just to carry home a few precious buckets of water.
Meanwhile, the nation’s road network has deteriorated into impassable, neglected hazard zones that wreck vehicles and cripple commerce.
Through all of this, the human engine of the public sector is left to rot.
Civil servants and pensioners receive meager wages and payouts that fall disastrously short of providing a dignified livelihood.
Their dedicated service is rewarded with monthly earnings that cannot cover a family’s basic basket of goods.
Surely what use is a paltry $60 to an elderly man or woman who invested decades of sweat and toil for this country’s development?
Faced with this sea of unaddressed crises, one must ask: where does the finance minister get these celebrated surpluses?
What point is there in bragging about a surplus when the nation is breaking beneath the weight of state neglect?
Is it not akin to a father boasting over a fat, overflowing wallet while his family starves at home and his children are turned away from school for unpaid fees?
A budget surplus is not a trophy to be displayed.
It is a measure of unspent funds that ought to have been deployed to preserve human life and dignity.
The irony is bitter.
Zimbabweans are among the most heavily taxed and levied citizens on the African continent.
Every day, people pay some of the region’s highest toll fees, heavily taxed fuel, and astronomical passport fees, alongside a plethora of other taxes and levies.
The money is being extracted from the pockets of struggling households continuously and ruthlessly.
Where is all this money going?
Is revenue being collected simply for the Treasury to parade a heavy wallet on digital platforms while real human beings suffer in the dark?
A government’s success is not measured by numbers on a balance sheet, but by the well-being of its people.
Until those paper billions translate into medicine, food, clean water, and fair wages, these boastful announcements remain meaningless.
They are nothing more than an insult to the citizens of Zimbabwe.
- Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. Please feel free to contact him on +263715667700 or mbofana.tendairuben73@gmail.com