Zimbabwean regime shouldn’t play reckless political games with citizens fleeing Afrophobic attacks in South Africa

Tendai Ruben Mbofana

When political rhetoric disconnects entirely from reality, the resulting narrative is not just absurd; it is dangerous. 

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A glaring example of this disconnect was recently on full display when ZANU-PF spokesperson Chris Mutsvangwa took to the airwaves of South African television news channel Newzroom Afrika. 

Confronted with the harrowing plight of thousands of Zimbabweans fleeing escalating Afrophobic violence in South Africa, Mutsvangwa boldly proclaimed that the homeland stands ready to absorb them into what he boasted is “the fastest growing economy in the region.” 

To watch a senior ruling party official nonchalantly play politics with the desperate lives of our compatriots—while ordinary citizens at home are crushed under a mountain of economic misery—is both deeply infuriating and profoundly reckless.

The sheer audacity of claiming that Zimbabwe possesses the capacity to smoothly reintegrate returning migrants exposes a government completely detached from the daily struggles of its people. 

Let us look at the cold, hard numbers that the state media conveniently ignores. 

Today, an astounding 80 percent of ordinary Zimbabweans suffer in general poverty, while nearly 49 percent endure the indignities of extreme poverty, struggling to secure even their next meal. 

Our public services have not just crumbled; they have completely collapsed. 

Hospitals lack basic paracetamol and bandages, clean running water is a luxury of a bygone era, and our schools are on permanent life support. 

This is the bleak landscape to which Mutsvangwa is inviting desperate families to return. 

He pretends all is well back home, yet he knows very well that these migrants did not cross the Limpopo out of a desire for fun and adventure. 

They fled precisely because the catastrophic policy failures of his administration rendered life at home completely unlivable.

Consider the report that approximately 56,000 Zimbabwean migrants are currently facing return due to the tightening of immigration and the hostile environment down south. 

The government confidently insists it has the mechanisms to absorb them. 

But into which economy? 

Zimbabwe suffers from a formal unemployment rate that surpasses 90 percent. 

The traditional job market is virtually dead. 

The absolute majority of our population has been reduced to survivalist hustling within an overcrowded informal sector. 

Drive through any town or city, and the reality is unmistakable: streets choked with citizens vending secondhand clothes, cheap plastic wares, and vegetables just to make ends meet. 

To inject tens of thousands of new job-seekers into this saturated informal economy is not a plan; it is a recipe for social catastrophe.

Worse still is the sheer lack of foresight regarding the broader migration crisis. 

If the government claims it can easily absorb 56,000 people, what happens if the estimated 3 million Zimbabweans currently living in South Africa—both legally and illegally—are forced back home? 

The infrastructure would implode within days. 

Yet, when pushed on how these thousands returning would survive, Mutsvangwa resorted to his trademark bombast, bragging that millions of Zimbabweans have successfully found their footing in the mining sector.

Does the ZANU-PF spokesperson honestly expect the 56,000 plus returning compatriots to pick up picks and shovels and become “makorokoza” (artisanal miners)? 

To romanticize illegal, highly dangerous, and unregulated artisanal gold mining as a viable national employment strategy is a massive insult to our collective intelligence. 

Artisanal mining in Zimbabwe is characterized by violent machete gangs, collapsing shafts that bury young men alive, and systemic corruption where the elite plunder the real profits while the poor risk their lives for crumbs. 

It is a desperate hustle born of absolute destitution, not a proud pillar of economic growth.

The ruling elite must stop using the lives of vulnerable Zimbabweans as chess pieces for public relations victories on international television. 

Propagandistic claims of an economic boom mean absolutely nothing when they do not translate into food on the table, decent jobs, or functional hospitals for the masses. 

Forcing people back into the very same structural misery they risked everything to escape is a betrayal of the highest order. 

True patriotism demands that the government face the harsh truth: Zimbabwe is currently in no position to support its diaspora because it has failed dismally to care for those who never left.

The time for empty posturing and televised arrogance must come to an end. 

Our brothers and sisters in the diaspora deserve dignity, protection, and a genuine safety net, not a ticket back to an economic wasteland disguised as a regional powerhouse. 

If the leaders in Harare sincerely want Zimbabweans to return, they must stop playing cheap politics.

They must focus on the grueling, honest work of fixing the broken economy, restoring basic public services, and building a nation where citizens can actually survive. 

Until then, boasting about an imaginary paradise while millions starve at home is a shameful charade that fools absolutely no one.

• 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