Yesha
Senior Member
- Jan 28, 2026
- 193
- 99
Zimbabwe has approved another five-year anti-corruption strategy, placing renewed emphasis on gold smuggling, border management, institutional accountability and the digitisation of public services. But the announcement raises a question that goes beyond the adoption of a new policy: what will actually change in a country where anti-corruption institutions and legislation have existed for years, yet corruption remains a persistent governance challenge?
The National Anti-Corruption Strategy 2 (2026–2030), approved by Cabinet on November 10, 2026, comes against a background of poor international corruption indicators, significant illicit financial outflows and longstanding concerns about accountability in the management of public resources.
Government says the new framework will strengthen prevention, investigation and prosecution while bringing State institutions, the private sector and citizens into a coordinated response.
Information Minister Zhemu Soda described it as a whole-of-government and whole-of-society framework, with implementation integrated into Government budgets and institutional work plans.
Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube identified gold smuggling and corruption loopholes at border posts as priority areas, arguing that digitisation and better information-sharing between agencies could help close opportunities for abuse.
These are important commitments. However, Zimbabwe's experience suggests that the challenge has never been simply the absence of anti-corruption policies. It has also been the gap between policy commitments, institutional capacity and the consistent enforcement of the law.
In Transparency International's 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index, released in February 2026, Zimbabwe scored 22 out of 100 and ranked 157th among 182 countries and territories.
Although this represented a one-point improvement from its 2024 score of 21, the country remained significantly below the Sub-Saharan African average of 32.
The index measures perceptions of public-sector corruption using assessments by experts and businesspeople. It is not a direct count of corruption cases or the amount of money stolen. Nevertheless, it provides an indication of how public-sector integrity is viewed internationally.
For Zimbabwe, the marginal improvement offers little basis for declaring a significant turnaround.
The economic implications are even more concerning.
An African Development Bank policy brief on Zimbabwe estimated that the country lost more than US$12 billion through cumulative illicit financial flows between 2009 and 2023.
The mining sector, particularly gold, was identified as a major source of these outflows. Gold smuggling alone was estimated to account for more than 60 percent of illicit financial flows, with annual losses estimated at approximately US$1.5 billion.
These figures require an important distinction. Illicit financial flows include activities such as smuggling, tax evasion and other illegal or illicit financial transactions. They are not all proven cases of corruption involving public officials.
However, the figures expose weaknesses in the systems responsible for regulating mineral production, monitoring exports, collecting revenue and tracking the movement of money.
For a country whose mining sector is central to foreign currency generation and economic growth, such leakages have implications beyond lost tax revenue. They also raise questions about who benefits from national resources and whether the country is receiving the full economic value of its mineral wealth.
Gold smuggling is therefore not simply a law-enforcement problem. It is a resource-governance problem involving licensing, production records, mineral purchasing, customs administration, export documentation and financial oversight.
Zimbabwe established its Anti-Corruption Commission under the Anti-Corruption Commission Act of 2004, which came into operation in 2005. The institution was subsequently entrenched in the 2013 Constitution as an independent commission.
Section 254 provides for its establishment, while Section 255 outlines its functions, including investigating and exposing corruption, receiving complaints, promoting transparency and recommending measures to combat corruption.
This means Zimbabwe is not starting from scratch. It already has a constitutionally recognised institution specifically mandated to investigate corruption.
ZACC has also recorded measurable enforcement activity.
Its 2025 Annual Report, launched in September 2026, showed that the Commission received 797 reports of suspected corruption during the year. It allocated 624 for formal investigation, completed investigations into 386 cases and referred 314 dockets to the National Prosecuting Authority.
The Commission also reported 364 arrests and 96 convictions.
In addition, it referred asset recovery cases involving 99 motor vehicles valued at US$5.68 million and 38 properties valued at US$3.79 million for confiscation and unexplained wealth proceedings.
These figures demonstrate that anti-corruption enforcement is taking place. However, they also illustrate why the number of arrests alone cannot be used to measure success.
An arrest is not a conviction. A completed investigation is not necessarily a successful prosecution. And identifying potentially tainted assets is not the same as recovering them into public ownership.
There is also an institutional distinction worth examining: ZACC investigates corruption, but prosecutions are handled by the National Prosecuting Authority. This means effective enforcement depends on the quality of investigations, the strength of evidence, prosecutorial decisions and the ability of courts to conclude cases.
The entire chain must function.
If investigations are poorly conducted, cases can collapse. If prosecutions are delayed, accountability becomes difficult to establish. If convicted individuals are not deprived of the proceeds of corruption, the financial incentives behind criminal activity may remain largely intact.
The new strategy must therefore strengthen the relationship between ZACC, the NPA, the courts, the Financial Intelligence Unit, the police, the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority and other institutions responsible for protecting public resources.
Although ZACC is constitutionally established as an independent commission, independence on paper must be matched by the ability to investigate cases without improper interference.
The institution's effectiveness also depends on adequate funding, qualified investigators, access to financial intelligence, forensic capacity and the ability to pursue complex cases involving influential individuals and corporate interests.
A 2022 International Monetary Fund assessment of Zimbabwe's governance environment noted that implementation of the first National Anti-Corruption Strategy, adopted in 2020, was constrained partly by funding availability. It also identified low levels of corruption prosecution and weaknesses in mining-sector governance and transparency.
This is an important lesson for the second strategy.
A policy can identify the correct problems and establish ambitious targets, but without adequate resources and institutional capacity, implementation can remain limited.
The public will also need assurance that enforcement is consistent, rather than determined by an individual's political, economic or institutional connections.
The credibility of an anti-corruption system is ultimately tested by whether the law is applied equally.
Many corruption opportunities emerge where public officials exercise excessive discretion over processes that are difficult to monitor.
At border posts, for example, weaknesses in customs administration, cargo verification, export declarations and information-sharing can create opportunities for under-declaration, bribery and the movement of goods outside official channels.
Digitised systems could create electronic records of transactions, improve the tracking of goods and reduce opportunities for unauthorised interference.
In the gold sector, better integration of production, purchasing, taxation and export records could make it easier to identify discrepancies between the gold declared as produced, the quantities purchased by authorised buyers and the quantities ultimately exported.
This would require effective coordination between the Ministry of Mines, Fidelity Gold Refinery, ZIMRA, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, law-enforcement agencies and other relevant institutions.
However, technology is not a substitute for accountability.
A digitised system can still be manipulated if officials have unrestricted access, if oversight is weak or if institutions fail to act on information generated by the system.
Digitalisation must therefore be accompanied by independent audits, secure records, access controls, transparent procurement and consequences for those who manipulate public systems.
The objective should not simply be to move Government processes online, but to make them more transparent, traceable and accountable.
People working inside public institutions and private companies are often among those best positioned to identify irregular transactions, procurement manipulation and abuse of office.
However, reporting corruption can carry personal and professional risks, particularly where the individuals implicated hold positions of authority.
Without credible protection against intimidation, victimisation, dismissal or other forms of retaliation, people may choose to remain silent.
A strong whistleblower framework would need to provide confidential reporting channels, protection against retaliation, clear procedures for investigating disclosures and remedies where individuals suffer reprisals.
It would also need to protect people who report wrongdoing in good faith, while providing safeguards against knowingly false or malicious allegations.
Public participation cannot be meaningful if citizens are encouraged to expose corruption but are left vulnerable after doing so.
By the end of its five-year implementation period, Zimbabweans should be able to assess progress through concrete indicators.
These should include reductions in illicit gold outflows, improved mineral revenue collection, shorter investigation and prosecution timelines, increased recovery of stolen assets, transparent public procurement and stronger protection for whistleblowers.
Government should also publish regular implementation reports showing which institutions have met their targets, which have fallen behind and what corrective measures have been taken.
Parliament and independent oversight institutions should have meaningful opportunities to scrutinise implementation, while civil society and the media should be able to access information necessary to assess progress.
The strategy's integration into Government budgets and work plans is particularly important. Anti-corruption commitments require funding, staffing and clearly assigned institutional responsibilities. Without these, implementation risks becoming another policy exercise measured by activities rather than outcomes.
Ultimately, the most important test will be whether the strategy can address corruption involving not only low-level public officials, but also powerful individuals, companies and networks that benefit from weaknesses in the management of national resources.
Zimbabwe has had an anti-corruption commission since 2005, a constitutional framework since 2013 and a national anti-corruption strategy since 2020. The approval of NACS II adds another layer to this institutional framework.
What remains to be demonstrated is whether the country can turn these structures into a system that consistently prevents abuse, investigates wrongdoing, secures convictions and recovers public resources.
The question facing Zimbabwe is no longer whether it has the institutions and policies to fight corruption. It is whether those institutions will have the capacity, independence and authority to hold everyone accountable, without exception.
The National Anti-Corruption Strategy 2 (2026–2030), approved by Cabinet on November 10, 2026, comes against a background of poor international corruption indicators, significant illicit financial outflows and longstanding concerns about accountability in the management of public resources.
Government says the new framework will strengthen prevention, investigation and prosecution while bringing State institutions, the private sector and citizens into a coordinated response.
Information Minister Zhemu Soda described it as a whole-of-government and whole-of-society framework, with implementation integrated into Government budgets and institutional work plans.
Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube identified gold smuggling and corruption loopholes at border posts as priority areas, arguing that digitisation and better information-sharing between agencies could help close opportunities for abuse.
These are important commitments. However, Zimbabwe's experience suggests that the challenge has never been simply the absence of anti-corruption policies. It has also been the gap between policy commitments, institutional capacity and the consistent enforcement of the law.
THE SCALE OF THE GOVERNANCE CHALLENGE
Zimbabwe's position on international corruption indicators provides an important starting point for assessing the new strategy.In Transparency International's 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index, released in February 2026, Zimbabwe scored 22 out of 100 and ranked 157th among 182 countries and territories.
Although this represented a one-point improvement from its 2024 score of 21, the country remained significantly below the Sub-Saharan African average of 32.
The index measures perceptions of public-sector corruption using assessments by experts and businesspeople. It is not a direct count of corruption cases or the amount of money stolen. Nevertheless, it provides an indication of how public-sector integrity is viewed internationally.
For Zimbabwe, the marginal improvement offers little basis for declaring a significant turnaround.
The economic implications are even more concerning.
An African Development Bank policy brief on Zimbabwe estimated that the country lost more than US$12 billion through cumulative illicit financial flows between 2009 and 2023.
The mining sector, particularly gold, was identified as a major source of these outflows. Gold smuggling alone was estimated to account for more than 60 percent of illicit financial flows, with annual losses estimated at approximately US$1.5 billion.
These figures require an important distinction. Illicit financial flows include activities such as smuggling, tax evasion and other illegal or illicit financial transactions. They are not all proven cases of corruption involving public officials.
However, the figures expose weaknesses in the systems responsible for regulating mineral production, monitoring exports, collecting revenue and tracking the movement of money.
For a country whose mining sector is central to foreign currency generation and economic growth, such leakages have implications beyond lost tax revenue. They also raise questions about who benefits from national resources and whether the country is receiving the full economic value of its mineral wealth.
Gold smuggling is therefore not simply a law-enforcement problem. It is a resource-governance problem involving licensing, production records, mineral purchasing, customs administration, export documentation and financial oversight.
ZACC EXISTS. WHY DOES CORRUPTION REMAIN A CHALLENGE?
One of the most important questions surrounding the new strategy is the role of the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC).Zimbabwe established its Anti-Corruption Commission under the Anti-Corruption Commission Act of 2004, which came into operation in 2005. The institution was subsequently entrenched in the 2013 Constitution as an independent commission.
Section 254 provides for its establishment, while Section 255 outlines its functions, including investigating and exposing corruption, receiving complaints, promoting transparency and recommending measures to combat corruption.
This means Zimbabwe is not starting from scratch. It already has a constitutionally recognised institution specifically mandated to investigate corruption.
ZACC has also recorded measurable enforcement activity.
Its 2025 Annual Report, launched in September 2026, showed that the Commission received 797 reports of suspected corruption during the year. It allocated 624 for formal investigation, completed investigations into 386 cases and referred 314 dockets to the National Prosecuting Authority.
The Commission also reported 364 arrests and 96 convictions.
In addition, it referred asset recovery cases involving 99 motor vehicles valued at US$5.68 million and 38 properties valued at US$3.79 million for confiscation and unexplained wealth proceedings.
These figures demonstrate that anti-corruption enforcement is taking place. However, they also illustrate why the number of arrests alone cannot be used to measure success.
An arrest is not a conviction. A completed investigation is not necessarily a successful prosecution. And identifying potentially tainted assets is not the same as recovering them into public ownership.
There is also an institutional distinction worth examining: ZACC investigates corruption, but prosecutions are handled by the National Prosecuting Authority. This means effective enforcement depends on the quality of investigations, the strength of evidence, prosecutorial decisions and the ability of courts to conclude cases.
The entire chain must function.
If investigations are poorly conducted, cases can collapse. If prosecutions are delayed, accountability becomes difficult to establish. If convicted individuals are not deprived of the proceeds of corruption, the financial incentives behind criminal activity may remain largely intact.
The new strategy must therefore strengthen the relationship between ZACC, the NPA, the courts, the Financial Intelligence Unit, the police, the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority and other institutions responsible for protecting public resources.
THE INDEPENDENCE QUESTION
Institutional independence is another issue that cannot be separated from the effectiveness of anti-corruption efforts.Although ZACC is constitutionally established as an independent commission, independence on paper must be matched by the ability to investigate cases without improper interference.
The institution's effectiveness also depends on adequate funding, qualified investigators, access to financial intelligence, forensic capacity and the ability to pursue complex cases involving influential individuals and corporate interests.
A 2022 International Monetary Fund assessment of Zimbabwe's governance environment noted that implementation of the first National Anti-Corruption Strategy, adopted in 2020, was constrained partly by funding availability. It also identified low levels of corruption prosecution and weaknesses in mining-sector governance and transparency.
This is an important lesson for the second strategy.
A policy can identify the correct problems and establish ambitious targets, but without adequate resources and institutional capacity, implementation can remain limited.
The public will also need assurance that enforcement is consistent, rather than determined by an individual's political, economic or institutional connections.
The credibility of an anti-corruption system is ultimately tested by whether the law is applied equally.
CAN DIGITALISATION CLOSE THE CORRUPTION LOOPHOLES?
Government's emphasis on digitalisation is one of the more practical components of the new strategy.Many corruption opportunities emerge where public officials exercise excessive discretion over processes that are difficult to monitor.
At border posts, for example, weaknesses in customs administration, cargo verification, export declarations and information-sharing can create opportunities for under-declaration, bribery and the movement of goods outside official channels.
Digitised systems could create electronic records of transactions, improve the tracking of goods and reduce opportunities for unauthorised interference.
In the gold sector, better integration of production, purchasing, taxation and export records could make it easier to identify discrepancies between the gold declared as produced, the quantities purchased by authorised buyers and the quantities ultimately exported.
This would require effective coordination between the Ministry of Mines, Fidelity Gold Refinery, ZIMRA, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, law-enforcement agencies and other relevant institutions.
However, technology is not a substitute for accountability.
A digitised system can still be manipulated if officials have unrestricted access, if oversight is weak or if institutions fail to act on information generated by the system.
Digitalisation must therefore be accompanied by independent audits, secure records, access controls, transparent procurement and consequences for those who manipulate public systems.
The objective should not simply be to move Government processes online, but to make them more transparent, traceable and accountable.
WHISTLEBLOWER PROTECTION: ADDRESSING THE FEAR OF REPORTING CORRUPTION
The proposed whistleblower legislation could also become an important part of the new framework.People working inside public institutions and private companies are often among those best positioned to identify irregular transactions, procurement manipulation and abuse of office.
However, reporting corruption can carry personal and professional risks, particularly where the individuals implicated hold positions of authority.
Without credible protection against intimidation, victimisation, dismissal or other forms of retaliation, people may choose to remain silent.
A strong whistleblower framework would need to provide confidential reporting channels, protection against retaliation, clear procedures for investigating disclosures and remedies where individuals suffer reprisals.
It would also need to protect people who report wrongdoing in good faith, while providing safeguards against knowingly false or malicious allegations.
Public participation cannot be meaningful if citizens are encouraged to expose corruption but are left vulnerable after doing so.
WHAT SHOULD ZIMBABWEANS EXPECT BY 2030?
The National Anti-Corruption Strategy 2 has identified several areas where intervention is necessary. Its real value, however, will depend on whether its commitments translate into measurable improvements.By the end of its five-year implementation period, Zimbabweans should be able to assess progress through concrete indicators.
These should include reductions in illicit gold outflows, improved mineral revenue collection, shorter investigation and prosecution timelines, increased recovery of stolen assets, transparent public procurement and stronger protection for whistleblowers.
Government should also publish regular implementation reports showing which institutions have met their targets, which have fallen behind and what corrective measures have been taken.
Parliament and independent oversight institutions should have meaningful opportunities to scrutinise implementation, while civil society and the media should be able to access information necessary to assess progress.
The strategy's integration into Government budgets and work plans is particularly important. Anti-corruption commitments require funding, staffing and clearly assigned institutional responsibilities. Without these, implementation risks becoming another policy exercise measured by activities rather than outcomes.
Ultimately, the most important test will be whether the strategy can address corruption involving not only low-level public officials, but also powerful individuals, companies and networks that benefit from weaknesses in the management of national resources.
Zimbabwe has had an anti-corruption commission since 2005, a constitutional framework since 2013 and a national anti-corruption strategy since 2020. The approval of NACS II adds another layer to this institutional framework.
What remains to be demonstrated is whether the country can turn these structures into a system that consistently prevents abuse, investigates wrongdoing, secures convictions and recovers public resources.
The question facing Zimbabwe is no longer whether it has the institutions and policies to fight corruption. It is whether those institutions will have the capacity, independence and authority to hold everyone accountable, without exception.
