Only a failed government buys luxury cars while citizens die in poor hospitals

At times, it feels as though the Devil has made Zimbabwe his home.

There is something profoundly disturbing—almost grotesque—about a head of state proudly handing out expensive vehicles while the nation’s hospitals resemble hospices for the forgotten, and schools look like relics abandoned by time.

Yet in Zimbabwe, this has become routine.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa has in recent weeks been on a relentless campaign of vehicle donations: 21 brand-new vehicles to the ZANU-PF Women’s League, five more to Young Women4ED, fleets to party provincial structures, cars to traditional leaders, and high-end SUVs to Central Committee members.

He has also presided over the handover of vehicles to entertainers and public personalities—including Comic Elder with his Ford Raptor, as well as musicians Greatman (Tongai Gwaze), Chipo Muchegwa, and several others.

We are told these are acts of generosity, care, or “empowerment.”

But what logic—if any—justifies such largesse when the country’s social services are collapsing in full view of the same leadership?

Zimbabwe’s public healthcare system is barely functional.

People are dying not from complex diseases that require sophisticated, cutting-edge treatment, but from ordinary conditions that even the most modest health system can manage.

Cancer patients perish because radiotherapy and diagnostic machines have been broken for years.

Dialysis services are either unavailable or priced so high they might as well not exist.

Clinics lack medication so basic that it shocks the conscience.

Mothers lose babies during childbirth because ambulances cannot reach them in time—or because an entire district relies on one decaying vehicle without fuel.

These needless deaths are not accidents of fate; they are the predictable consequences of political choices.

When a government finds money—or accepts “donations”—for luxury cars but not for life-saving equipment, the message is unambiguous: lives matter less than political convenience.

The situation is no different in education.

Children sit on dusty floors, write on their knees, or share a handful of torn textbooks among dozens.

Science laboratories stand empty, libraries are barren, and modern technology is little more than a rumour to most learners.

Teachers labour in conditions so demoralising that even the most dedicated struggle to deliver quality education.

What future are these children expected to build when the state refuses to invest in their intellectual foundations?

A nation that claims to value development cannot plausibly justify spending fortunes on Toyota Land Cruiser 300s, Ford Raptors, and Hilux GD6 double-cabs while its young are condemned to a poverty of opportunity.

The true obscenity is not merely that these vehicles are bought or donated; it is that their presentation is televised with pomp and ceremony, yet no such national celebration is ever held for the commissioning of new cancer machine in every district hospital or functional science labs at most rural schools.

Defenders of this car-donation spree often insist that the vehicles come from private benefactors, not from the state’s coffers.

But that defence collapses under even minimal scrutiny.

Many of these “benefactors” are well-connected tenderpreneurs, whose fortunes are woven into public contracts—often opaque, inflated, or scandalously awarded.

They siphon resources that should be used to equip hospitals, supply schools, and fund essential services.

What they do instead—steal vast sums from public coffers and then use a tiny fraction of the loot to buy cars for “donation”—is nothing short of the height of evil.

Their wealth and influence depend entirely on political patronage; these so-called gifts are not acts of generosity, but calculated investments in loyalty and protection.

Zimbabweans know these individuals well: “businessmen” who inexplicably win multi-million-dollar tenders, purchase fleets of luxury vehicles, and distribute them with theatrical fanfare.

These are not philanthropists—they are Zvigananda, facilitators and beneficiaries of a captured state.

The vehicles they hand out are not acts of kindness; they are tools of political bargaining, masking theft as benevolence while ordinary citizens suffer.

Even if the donations were entirely private, the president’s acceptance and redistribution of them entrenches a deeply corrupt system of personalised power.

The state becomes indistinguishable from the ruling party, and the presidency becomes a glorified courier service for luxury cars.

Why should a head of state preside over such giveaways?

Why is there never equivalent mobilisation for medical equipment, textbooks, ambulances, or school supplies?

These benefactors who can summon a fleet of SUVs at a moment’s notice have never shown the same urgency for purchasing dialysis machines, incubators, chemotherapy equipment, or ventilators.

Their silence on these necessities is deafening.

It speaks volumes about their priorities—and those of the political leadership that embraces them.

Zimbabweans must confront a brutally simple question: How many lives could be saved with the money spent on just one of these vehicles?

A single Ford Ranger Raptor could fund critical medications for an entire district.

A Toyota Land Cruiser 300 could equip an entire hospital ward.

The fleet handed to the Women’s League could purchase multiple ambulances or keep dozens of cancer patients alive with chemotherapy drugs.

This is not abstract mathematics; it is stomach-turning reality.

We live in a country where citizens organise crowdfunding campaigns for basic medical procedures, where families sell their last goats to pay for CT scans, where parents must choose which child attends school because they cannot afford fees or books.

Against that backdrop, the spectacle of high-end vehicle donations is not merely tone-deaf—it is morally indefensible.

There is also the political exploitation of poverty.

These donations are not random acts of kindness; they are strategically targeted—at party loyalists, crucial constituencies, and influential groups whose gratitude can be leveraged in future elections.

Cars become instruments of political mobilisation, with the president projected as a benevolent patriarch dispensing gifts.

This feudal style of governance undermines any claim to democratic legitimacy.

A state should allocate resources according to national need, not partisan convenience.

Yet in Zimbabwe, political survival consistently takes precedence over human survival.

Defenders may claim that development takes time, that vehicles serve administrative purposes, or that the state invests elsewhere.

But the evidence of national priorities is on clear display.

Leaders do not seek medical treatment in public hospitals; their children do not attend collapsing schools.

Ordinary Zimbabweans bear the weight of the crisis—those who wait endlessly for medication, who bury loved ones too soon, who watch their children’s dreams suffocate under the rubble of a broken system.

It is their suffering that should guide national decisions.

Instead, citizens are forced to watch the powerful congratulate themselves for distributing vehicles that cost more than a rural clinic’s annual budget.

A nation’s moral compass is revealed by what its leaders choose to celebrate.

Zimbabwe’s leadership celebrates cars.

It does not celebrate saving lives.

It does not celebrate educating children.

It does not celebrate building strong institutions or easing the daily burdens of millions.

When a presidency becomes the face of patronage rather than service, when extravagance eclipses empathy, when loyalty is bought instead of trust earned, the result is a state that looks after itself and its friends—not its people.

Zimbabwe deserves better.

It deserves leadership that values a functioning hospital over a flashy convoy, that sees a child with a textbook as more important than a party official in a new SUV, that recognises true development is measured not in the number of vehicles distributed but in the number of lives uplifted.

Until that transformation happens, each new car donation will stand as a monument to national failure—a gleaming reminder that the priorities of those in power remain dangerously out of sync with the urgent needs of the citizens they claim to serve.

● Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. Please feel free to WhatsApp or Call: +263715667700 | +263782283975, or email: [email protected], or visit website: https://mbofanatendairuben.news.blog/

To directly receive articles from Tendai Ruben Mbofana, please join his WhatsApp Channel on: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaqprWCIyPtRnKpkHe08