Zimbabwe Tourism Minister caught in Expo scandal

📅 Published: August 26, 2025

Curated by AllZimNews.com

Senior government and tourism sources allege that Rwodzi has been overstepping her mandate by interfering with the day-to-day operations of the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA), the statutory body established under the Tourism Act (Chapter 14:20) to promote, regulate, and develop Zimbabwe’s tourism sector. “ZTA is supposed to run the event, but the minister is now not only influencing decisions, she has virtually taken over operations, including managing the Zimbabwe Tourism Fund, which is illegal,” said one source.

Officials accuse Rwodzi and her allies of deliberately moving the event to Mutare to create lucrative procurement, supply, and infrastructure contracts for themselves and connected businesses. “Moving the expo to Mutare does not add value; it only increases costs.

This is about money and personal enrichment, not tourism development,” another source said.

To prepare Mutare for the expo, a ZTA procurement and logistics team was reportedly dispatched to China in July to purchase containers, tents, chairs, and other equipment to construct temporary facilities.

Hosting an international expo of this scale requires extensive infrastructure, including exhibition halls, meeting rooms, catering, reliable internet, sanitation, security, and accommodation for more than 300 exhibitors. “This is going to cost millions.

Officials are downplaying the figures, but the real beneficiaries will be ministry insiders and their cronies,” a tourism ministry official said.

The move comes shortly after the launch of the National Tourism and Hospitality Policy (2025–2030), which aims to grow the sector into a US$10 billion industry by 2030.

Critics say the policy has effectively given Rwodzi sweeping powers to dictate tourism development, further sidelining the ZTA.

The expo, formerly known as the Zimbabwe International Travel Expo (Shanyai/Vakatshani), was launched in 2008 and initially hosted in Harare before being moved to Bulawayo in 2015.

The relocation to Bulawayo was justified at the time on the basis of cost efficiency and infrastructure readiness at ZITF. “Bulawayo was the logical host because everything was already in place.

The current move to Mutare is political, not economic.

Officials were not ‘eating’ in Bulawayo, so they shifted it,” another source said.

Efforts to obtain comment from Minister Rwodzi were unsuccessful by the time of publication.

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