So should Zimbabweans be proud that our fuel is second, and not the most expensive in Africa, Prof. Mthuli?

Tendai Ruben Mbofana

​In the theater of the absurd that has become Zimbabwe’s fiscal policy, Finance Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube has just delivered his latest comedic masterpiece. 

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Speaking to the press in Bulawayo, the Professor attempted to soothe the stinging eyes of motorists and the parched throats of industry leaders by offering a revolutionary perspective on our economic misery: we aren’t the worst; we’re just the runner-up. 

According to the Minister, Zimbabweans should perhaps breathe a collective sigh of relief because Malawi currently holds the crown for the region’s most expensive fuel. 

Zimbabwe, he noted with the detached serenity of an academic observer, is merely positioned “just below it.” 

To hear the Minister tell it, being the second-most expensive fuel market in Southern Africa is a point of statistical interest rather than a national emergency.

There is a peculiar brand of academic arrogance required to tell a population already burdened by high living costs and inadequate earnings that they should find comfort in being the second-most squeezed people in the region.

It is the economic equivalent of a doctor telling a patient not to worry about a gangrenous leg because the gentleman in the next ward has lost both his arms. 

Professor Ncube’s attempt to frame our fuel prices as “broadly comparable” to Kenya or Malawi is a masterclass in selective data. 

By using Malawi as his primary yardstick—a country currently grappling with its own catastrophic foreign exchange crisis and unique landlocked logistics—he is setting the bar at floor level. 

One must ask if this is the new benchmark for the “Upper Middle-Income Society” by 2030. 

Are we now measuring our success by how closely we trail the most distressed and fragile economies on the continent?

What the Professor conveniently omitted from his comparative lecture is the internal architecture of a Zimbabwean litre of fuel. 

In most functional economies, fuel prices fluctuate primarily based on the global cost of Brent Crude and the efficiency of the supply chain. 

In Zimbabwe, however, fuel is not just a commodity; it is a taxation vehicle. 

When a Zimbabwean pulls up to a pump, they are not just buying energy; they are paying a tithe to a government that has run out of ideas. 

Between the Carbon Tax, the ZINARA levy, the Debt Redemption Levy, the Strategic Reserve Levy, and the extortionist price of mandatory ethanol blending, the state has turned every service station into a high-pressure collection point for a treasury that refuses to tighten its own belt.

We are “number two” in the region not because our geography is difficult or because international suppliers dislike us, but because our government has loaded the cost of its own inefficiency onto the back of every commuter, every farmer, and every manufacturer. 

To brag that we are cheaper than Malawi while ignoring the significantly lower costs in Zambia, Botswana, or South Africa is a staggering admission of policy failure. 

In those neighboring spaces, fuel is treated as the lifeblood of production; here, it is treated as a golden goose to be plucked until it can no longer honk.

The ripple effect of this “second-best” pricing is devastating. 

Fuel is the “master resource.” 

Its price dictates the cost of a loaf of bread in Gokwe, the price of a bus fare for a domestic worker in Harare, and the viability of a mining operation in Zvishavane. 

When the Minister shrugs off being the second-most expensive market, he is effectively shrugging off the high cost of production that makes Zimbabwean goods uncompetitive in the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). 

How are Zimbabwean manufacturers expected to compete with regional peers when their transport and energy overheads are artificially inflated by government levies?

This ‘silver medal’ in fuel pricing ensures that our cost of production and transport remains among the highest in the region, stifling the very growth the government claims to be championing.

It is a self-inflicted wound that the Minister seems to view as a minor scratch.

​The Professor’s logic suggests that as long as there is one person in the room more miserable than us, the status quo is defensible. 

But governance is not a competition to see who can avoid being the absolute worst; it is about creating an environment where the cost of living allows for dignity and growth. 

By justifying our position as the runner-up in fuel costs, the Ministry of Finance is signaling that it has no intention of reviewing the punitive tax structure that keeps prices high. 

It is a stubborn refusal to acknowledge that the government’s hunger for “easy” tax revenue at the pump is starving the rest of the economy of the liquidity it needs to survive.

Furthermore, the comparison to Kenya is equally disingenuous. 

Kenya is a massive, diversified economy with a vastly different wage structure and industrial base. 

To cherry-pick nations that support a narrative of “relative affordability” while ignoring our immediate neighbors is an insult to the intelligence of every Zimbabwean struggling to make ends meet. 

The reality is that the Zimbabwean worker earns a fraction of what their regional counterparts do, yet they are expected to pay “number two” prices at the pump. 

The math simply does not add up for the person on the street.

Professor Ncube, the people of Zimbabwe are not looking for a silver medal in the High-Cost-of-Living Olympics. 

We do not care that a motorist in Lilongwe is suffering more than we are; we care that a motorist in Lusaka or Gaborone is paying significantly less for the same product. 

To be “better than Malawi” is not a policy triumph; it is a symptom of how low the bar has fallen under your watch. 

We aren’t proud to be the second-most expensive, Professor. 

We are exhausted by the mental gymnastics required to turn a failure of fiscal management into a talking point of relative success. 

The next time you stand at a podium to discuss fuel, do not tell us who is doing worse. 

Tell us why you are not doing better. 

Until then, the “second-place” ranking isn’t a consolation prize—it’s an indictment of a ministry that has prioritized revenue collection over the economic survival of its people.

• Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. To directly receive his articles please join his WhatsApp Channel on: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaqprWCIyPtRnKpkHe08