Are Mnangagwa’s Priorities Right?

7th September 2026

Emmerson Mnangagwa, the despotic president of Zimbabwe, never ceases to amaze. His priorities are brazenly self-serving to the point where his sanity is called into question.

Zimbabwe is reeling under collapsing infrastructure, be it in the health, transport, services, and many other sectors, and citizens are dying unnecessarily because of this collapse.

Yet he goes on to offer to build a church for a whopping US$2 million.

You have to ask yourself whether national priorities are in the right place, especially as public hospitals continue to face shortages of medicines, equipment, and other essential resources.

Surely improving healthcare, hospitals, and other public services should come first.

Only recently, on 11^th August 2026, a ferry disaster on Lake Kariba claimed nearly one hundred lives when an old, ramshackle vessel operated by the Rural Infrastructure Development Agency (RIDA) capsized. The tragedy was driven in part by the government’s chronic underinvestment in critical infrastructure. Victims’ families were offered a pitifully small sum in funeral assistance, yet no commitment was made to upgrade transport infrastructure—doing nothing to prevent such a catastrophe from happening again

There are too many road accidents to mention, all claiming many lives. Most are caused by the condition of our roads, resulting from a lack of investment and corruption.

Zimbabwe’s education sector is now effectively sustained by the private sector—with the government having long since abandoned its duty of care to the nation’s children. Public schools remain in name only. The last meaningful infrastructure improvements were likely made during the Rhodesian era, and arguably in the earliest years following independence.

And yet, here we have an unashamed president and his cronies flaunting ill-gotten wealth and promoting a self-serving patronage system intended to win the backing of self-seeking public figures, church denominations, and their gullible followers.

Shame on you, Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa.

About the author
Memory Kishindo is a human rights activist based in the United Kingdom. She is in the Midlands Branch of the UK Chapter of Restoration of Human Rights (ROHR) Zimbabwe.  She can be contacted by email at kishindomemory51@gmail.com