When a government fails to deliver a better life for its citizens, it often resorts to desperate and despicable tactics Tendai Ruben Mbofana
It is becoming increasingly embarrassing – if not downright insulting – when the Zimbabwean government claims credit for development projects it had absolutely no hand in delivering To directly receive articles from Tendai Ruben Mbofana, please join his WhatsApp Channel on: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaqprWCIyPtRnKpkHe08
Nowhere is this more glaring than in the recent boasts by the Ministry of National Housing and Social Amenities that 70 percent of a revised one million housing unit target has been achieved This latest proclamation, carried uncritically by the state-controlled Herald, attempts to paint the Emmerson Mnangagwa administration as a champion of mass housing delivery
Yet, when one scratches beneath the propaganda varnish, the uncomfortable truth emerges: the bulk of these housing units have not been built by government at all, but rather by private developers, companies, cooperatives, and ordinary individuals painstakingly investing their own money In essence, we have reached a point where the State, having repeatedly failed to fulfil its own ambitious promises, has resorted to appropriating the sweat and sacrifice of citizens in order to manufacture the illusion of progress It is a sad commentary on governance when leaders are so desperate for positive headlines that they are willing to take ownership of achievements that do not belong to them The scale of this deception becomes clearer when placed in historical context
In May 2018, barely months after seizing power through a military coup d’état, President Mnangagwa went into the general election with grand promises His ZANU-PF manifesto pledged the construction of 1.5 million housing units within five years – the equivalent of building an average of 822 houses every single day It was an audacious target that should have raised eyebrows from the onset But Zimbabweans, weary of decades of economic collapse and political repression under Robert Mugabe, were prepared to give the “new dispensation” the benefit of the doubt
Many were hopeful that perhaps, just perhaps, the fresh leadership would match its rhetoric with tangible delivery What followed was the familiar pattern: fanfare at launch, silence in implementation, and a quiet burial of the original promise when reality proved stubborn In fact, before even making the 1.5 million pledge, Mnangagwa had set himself a short-term goal of building 400,000 houses before July 2018 This was announced soon after toppling Mugabe in November 2017
By the time the manifesto was unveiled five months later, there was nothing to show for this earlier commitment – not even the foundation trenches of the promised homes By 2023, the 1.5 million target had faded into the mist There was no credible evidence that government was anywhere near achieving it Instead, the target was quietly downsized under the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1), and then later “revised” to one million units
Now, we are being told that 70 percent of this new figure – about 700,000 houses – have already been completed Here is the catch: most of these houses are being counted simply because they exist, regardless of who built them If an ordinary Zimbabwean scrapes together savings, buys a stand, and builds a modest home for their family, it somehow gets logged as part of the government’s housing delivery record If a private company constructs a housing estate for profit, the State pats itself on the back for “facilitating” the development
This is not leadership; it is parasitism What makes this even more farcical is the government’s own dismal record in direct housing provision Where the State has been involved, we have often seen half-baked, poorly serviced settlements, stands without basic infrastructure, and ‘model houses’ built mainly for political photo opportunities A glaring example was “Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle”, hurriedly rolled out to accommodate victims of the government’s controversial 2005 “Operation Murambatsvina”, in which thousands of homes and informal structures were callously demolished, displacing an estimated 700,000 people directly, with over 2 million affected indirectly
Many of these so-called new homes — in areas such as Hatcliffe Extension, Dzivarasekwa Extension, Victoria Ranch in Masvingo, and parts of Cowdray Park in Bulawayo — were poorly constructed, lacked piped water, electricity, and sewer systems, and in some cases did not even have proper roads In Hatcliffe Extension, residents were forced to use makeshift pit latrines and fetch water from distant boreholes, while in Victoria Ranch, the houses were so substandard that walls cracked within months, roofs leaked, and some structures became uninhabitable What was meant to be a solution to a humanitarian crisis turned into another chapter of neglect and empty political grandstanding Amidst these glaring government failures to deliver on decent public housing, the real heavy lifting – from financing to actual construction – is being carried out by the private sector, diaspora remittances, and families themselves
The role of the State, in many instances, has been reduced to issuing permits and, unfortunately, sometimes even obstructing development through bureaucratic red tape, corruption, and mismanagement of land allocation Yet, when it comes to claiming credit, suddenly all these houses are paraded as the ruling party’s triumph One has to ask: if the government truly believes it has achieved this level of success, where is the evidence of large-scale state-driven housing projects Where are the newly built suburbs that can be directly attributed to public funding and execution
Where are the vast, planned communities with proper roads, water, and electricity infrastructure rolled out by government agencies Instead, what we see is the exact opposite – sprawling informal settlements mushrooming across urban and peri-urban areas, with residents left to fend for themselves for basic services If this is what government calls “housing delivery,” then it is delivery in name only The dishonesty is dangerous because it distorts accountability
By claiming credit for work done by private citizens, the State avoids facing the reality of its own failure to meet promises It manufactures the illusion of progress to mask a lack of capacity, planning, and commitment And, perhaps most cynically, it uses these inflated claims as political ammunition to campaign for re-election, banking on the fact that many Zimbabweans will not investigate the details This also raises the moral question of whether a government should ever claim personal or private achievements as its own
Development in any country is often a collaborative effort between the public and private sectors, but there must be honesty about roles and contributions If government’s role was only to create an enabling environment, then let it say so – and then demonstrate clearly how its policies, laws, and infrastructure investments directly led to such development Instead, we are fed a narrative that blurs the lines between facilitation and execution, until the average person is left believing that every brick laid in the country bears the government’s fingerprints It is the same approach we have seen with road repairs funded by local ratepayers, donor-funded boreholes, and school construction by NGOs – all ceremoniously “commissioned” by government officials as if the funding came from the national purse
This culture of credit appropriation is not just misleading; it is also insulting to the individuals and entities who have genuinely sacrificed to bring these developments into reality When a family spends years saving to build their first home, overcoming exorbitant material costs and economic instability, they deserve full recognition for that achievement – not to have it hijacked for a politician’s campaign slogan If anything, the government’s fixation on taking credit for private housing developments is a tacit admission of its own impotence It shows that it lacks the capacity, resources, and vision to deliver on the promises it makes – so it must piggyback on the achievements of others
For a government that has been in power for 45 years, that is nothing short of an indictment True leadership would focus on creating the conditions for mass housing development by addressing the root problems: making land allocation transparent, ensuring affordable access to building materials, guaranteeing title deeds, and investing in public infrastructure to support new communities Then, if private and public housing output rises as a result, government can legitimately claim its policies are working Until then, these claims of 700,000 housing units are little more than political theatre – a performance meant to distract from a record of broken promises
Zimbabweans deserve better than to be fed empty boasts They deserve a government that tells the truth, delivers on commitments, and respects the difference between facilitating progress and taking credit for it Because at the end of the day, there is nothing more shameful than celebrating another person’s achievement as if it were your own – especially when you have failed so dismally to achieve your own Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer
Please feel free to WhatsApp or Call: +263715667700 | +26378223975, or email: mbofana.tendairuben73@gmail.com, or visit website: https://mbofanatendairuben.news.blog/ Post published in: Featured
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Originally published on The Zimbabwean
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Source: Thezimbabwean
