By Farai D Hove

🔎 Analysis: Why Does the Zimbabwean Economy Worsen When Mnangagwa Dishes Out Cars?

📉 1. 

Political Patronage vs Productive Investment

Every time Mnangagwa distributes cars or agricultural equipment under Command Agriculture, it is often not based on economic logic but political loyalty and patronage. These handouts:

• Do not increase productivity directly,
• Reward political allies, especially in rural areas and military-affiliated structures (e.g. FAZ),
• Often go to untrained or inactive recipients who do not generate real economic value.

🚨 Outcome: Fiscal waste without corresponding output.

💸 2. 

Ballooning Public Debt & Corruption

Command Agriculture has been plagued by:

• Massive irregular expenditures,
• Inflated tender contracts (e.g. Sakunda Holdings involvement),
• Ghost beneficiaries and non-delivered inputs.

This leads to:

• Unsustainable borrowing to fund these programs,
• Erosion of investor confidence,
• A crippled local currency as money printing is used to cover deficits.

🧾 Example: 2020 Auditor-General’s report flagged billions unaccounted for under Command Agriculture.

🚜 3. 

No Value Chain Development

Distributing tractors, fuel, or inputs without:

• Proper extension services,
• Market access,
• Storage and transport infrastructure, means farmers produce but don’t profit.

⛔ Cars don’t improve output. In many cases, beneficiaries resell equipment or misuse it (e.g. use tractors as taxis).

📉 4. 

Currency Instability and Hyperinflation

Disbursements of luxury items (cars, allowances) are often done in USD or artificially subsidized ZWL. These:

• Distort markets,
• Increase demand for USD,
• Cause parallel market instability.

Each batch of car handouts signals to the market that government is spending recklessly — further driving inflation.

📊 Result: RTGS collapses, prices skyrocket, economic confidence tanks.

🛑 5. 

Perception of State Capture

When economic benefits are visibly distributed to:

• Military officers,
• Politicians,
• Chiefs or ZANU PF-affiliated groups,

It creates an exclusionary economy. The informal sector and youth (the majority) feel abandoned, leading to:

• Low productivity,
• Brain drain,
• Increased black market activity.

🗳️ Handouts alienate the productive class while rewarding the loyal elite.

📌

Giving out cars during economic decline is like pouring petrol on a fire.

Mnangagwa’s car handouts:

• Symbolize misplaced priorities,
• Represent non-productive spending,
• Fuel inflation, inequality, and corruption, while failing to stimulate real agricultural output.

Each handout reinforces the structural weakness of Zimbabwe’s rent-seeking economy — worsening, not helping, the crisis.