Harare – April 16, 2025
In a fiery and emotional address today, the National Vendors Union of Zimbabwe (NAVUZ) publicly condemned the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development for what it called “three weeks of deafening silence” following an urgent appeal submitted last month.
Speaking in central Harare, NAVUZ Chairperson Sten Zvorwadza accused the government of “abandoning” the country’s informal sector, which he said represents over six million Zimbabweans “trapped between two sharp and deadly horns” — the 2% Intermediated Money Transfer Tax (IMTT) and rampant police corruption.
“This is not just a crisis of policy,” Zvorwadza declared. “It is a crisis of conscience.”
NAVUZ said its March 10 letter to Finance Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube was a plea for urgent economic relief on behalf of the country’s street vendors, cross-border traders, and micro-entrepreneurs — those Zvorwadza described as “the backbone of Zimbabwe’s real economy.” The letter, NAVUZ said, has gone unanswered.
In a rare and sharply worded rebuke of state policy, the union painted a grim picture of life for informal traders who are simultaneously taxed by the government and extorted by what it described as “rogue” elements in the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) and municipal authorities.
“By day, the government bleeds every transaction with the 2% tax,” Zvorwadza said. “By night, vendors are harassed, threatened, and robbed by those meant to protect them.”
The IMTT — a digital transaction tax introduced in 2018 — has long been controversial. But NAVUZ is now calling for its complete removal from all informal sector transactions, arguing that it punishes survival and drives people back to the informal cash economy.
“This tax does not build Zimbabwe — it shrinks it,” Zvorwadza said. “It locks people in poverty. It is economic violence.”
NAVUZ also called for a formal meeting with the Ministry of Finance and a full public inquiry into police abuse and corruption targeting vendors — citing repeated instances of harassment, forced bribes, and illegal confiscation of goods.
The union warned that the government’s failure to respond to informal sector concerns is not only unsustainable, but dangerous.
“If the government does not hear us in Parliament or the corridors of power,” Zvorwadza said, “it will hear us in the streets, in the markets, and in the hearts of citizens who know this injustice must end.”
NAVUZ’s public demands include:
- An immediate response from Minister Mthuli Ncube’s office.
- The urgent scrapping of the 2% IMTT on informal sector transactions.
- A formal engagement between NAVUZ and the Ministry of Finance.
- A public inquiry into corrupt ZRP and municipal policing practices.
The statement closes with a stern warning to the government: “If you continue to tax the poor and protect corruption, you are no longer governing — you are exploiting.”
Government officials have yet to respond to today’s address.
This is a developing story.