Prisca

Over the last 18 months, KYCed personal Zimbabwean accounts added just over US$4 billion to their overseas & offshore accounts (bringing the total now held by Zimbabweans outside the country to just over US$40 billion). Because it's actually cheaper to use a foreign debit card for everyday purchases in Zimbabwe than a local one, more & more hard currency is being stashed away overseas by Zimbos. You, @The_Mushroom_Co, should get @NomalisoN or @begottensun to open an SA account for you and use that as your primary account for your transactions in Zim. Even with the charges levied by Hawaladars to move your money to SA, you'd still be saving something like 70% in fees over a year!! The certainty that, very soon, all your US$s will be forcibly converted to ZiG and devalued almost instantly is driving more & more hard currency out of the country. The markets never lie, @matigary @Mavhure @mimmitwit

In South Africa, they have power cuts (loadshedding?) that have put a national broadcaster off the air. Even Zimbabwe never sunk to these levels that @Sophie_Mokoena's @SABCPortal & @SABCNews have been reduced to. Through the lost decade (2000 to 2010), Zim never had to take its one pitiful national broadcaster off the air for want of electricity. @mavhure will have to get his news from hand-cranked Bioskoop Newsreels now, @mimmitwit @matigary

Zimbabwean bank customers pay up to 20 times more in transaction fees per year than other African countries. @MthuliNcube & @ReserveBankZIM won't ever allow Apple Pay because they believe it'll interfere with the ritual fiscal bloodletting of Zimbabwean workers that funds their lifestyles. They don't understand it, so they ban it, effectively. Even as research shows that banks would increase their transactional charges incomes 4x if they integrate Apple Pay! An ordinary retail customer in South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique, or Rwanda pays roughly US$15 to US$65 per year for full transactional banking. In Zimbabwe, that very same retail customers ~US$362 per year (it cost over US$550/year before the March 2026 "RBZ caps" on bank charges👇, which the banks just ignored). This evil status quo is one of the main reasons why Zimbabwe will forever continue to languish at the bottom of Ease of Doing Business tables. It's worse for corporates. The cost of transacting is cited by every single potential investor as one of the deterrents. The sad thing is that a bloated, useless & incompetent civil service will never crack the whip on banks. They live beyond their means & use these fees to extract ever more dollars out of your pocket to fund per diems, ghost workers and "bonuses" that reward civil servants for treating citizens like animals throughout the year. By allowing banks to bleed you dry like this, they channel these gains into banks' annual profit figures (on which the banks then pay tax to government) @edmnangagwa's "Open For Business" empty rhetoric meets its ultimate test on this issue & fails it year after year after year. This'll probably continue for the rest of your life, @mavhure @matigary @mimmitwit

Most people thought the public "denigration" of Latinos & Puerto Rico at a 2024 @realDonaldTrump rally, Latinos would vote for @KamalaHarris, but they proved the pundits wrong. This calculation is at the centre of @Republicans establishment current thinking that Latino voters would easily hand the 2028 Presidential election to @marcorubio. His @StateDept job has largely kept him at an arms length from the @ICEgov steamroller that alienated Latino voters & drove them to vote for @TheDemocrats in Tuesday's mid-terms. He would be virtually unbeatable by both primary rivals & the Democrats when he runs. As a Latino himself, the thinking is that the chance to elect America's first Latino President would trump almost any other grievance Latino voters might still hold against the Republicans in 2028. Because @TheDemocrats appear to have no idea WHY Latino voters handed them both Houses on Tuesday, their Congressional roadmap for the next two years as announced so far falls far short of passing the test Latino voters set for them on Tuesday. You can keep this tweet/post for 2028: Latino voters will flock to Rubio & almost certainly hand him the Presidency in 2028, despite how things look at the moment, @matigary @Mavhure @mimmitwit

Copy of speech delivered by American voters to the @Republicans yesterday, @Mavhure @mimmitwit @matigary

Twenty-seven years after @TheEconomist labeled Africa "The Hopeless Continent" & 15 years after their "Africa Rising" cover, where does Africa stand today?: Despite 20yrs of hype about tech hubs, resources, and demographic dividends, Africa’s total share of global GDP & global trade has remained stubbornly flat at around 2% to 3%. The average person in Sub-Saharan Africa produces a fraction of the economic output of an average person in Europe, North America, or East Asia Because Africa’s population has grown so rapidly over the last 20 years, any total GDP gains have been completely diluted on a per-capita basis. The economic structure hasn't shifted since 2011. Most countries remain heavily reliant on exporting minerals, oil, and agricultural products rather than advanced manufacturing or high-value services. The problem isn't the Africa's politicians. The problem is Africa's people. They have changed leaders countless times in the intervening 27 years & they have, each and every time, chosen leaders who perpetuate their poverty and laziness. Every single visionary potential leader Africa has had in the last 27 years has been laughed off the stage by Africans themselves as "delusional", accompanied by short-sighted comments like: "We don't eat roads", "We don't eat data centers". All because to the African voter, their priority is filling their stomach today. Even if that's at the expense of their own children's lives, @Mavhure @matigary @mimmitwit

Surprised to learn that Zimbabweans don't know their recent Whatsapp hijacking/hacking spree is linked directly to @facebook Ads. Two routes are used widely on Facebook to harvest data, which is then sold on at very lucrative prices. One is the "DM for price" data harvesting approach. By contacting the "advertiser" for price, your phone number/profile & linked details become a "profitable profile" of a Whatsapp user willing and ready to spend money on online purchases. Even if they are genuinely selling something via Facebook, a majority of these advertisers also then make money on the side by selling your data to dodgy Chinese "marketing companies" who are very interested in African numbers at the moment. The more direct ones are the "advertisers" in Zim who run ads that aren't connected to a Facebook page or profile. Typically, they trick you into clicking on an enticing image of the product but, instead of bringing up the product, that clicks immediately opens your Whatsapp with a pre-populated message to the "seller". Even if you then shut down the chat without sending any message & block the "advertiser", your phone number, name & other info linked to your Facebook & Whatsapp profile have already been automatically captured. Almost all of the "advertisers" harvesting this data (name, phone number & other publicly available data from your Facebook profile) make quite good money from selling this data on. The people who buy this data from these Zimbabwean "advertisers" & "sellers" always also sell this data on, packaged properly. They don't care if a criminal gang or financial hackers buy the data from them: money is money. Why Econet? Because the hackers currently exploiting this in Zimbabwe have probably the most comprehensive list of active Whatsapp accounts harvested over the last 6-7yrs. The majority of the numbers (~80%) are on @econetzimbabwe, making that network potentially the most lucrative to target at an infrastructure level. Once their system is compromised (a very easy thing to do now with AI for any digitally half-literate criminal), the numbers start getting hijacked. The "hackers" are mostly interested in seeing how you normally pay for the things you order online, on Whatsapp & on Facebook with your linked number. A hijacked number/profile is scrapped for this info: linked credit/debit/bank cards, @EcoCashZW wallets etc. It's today's equivalent of those 419 scams, where Nigerian online crooks were quite happy to send tens of thousands of messages a week/month, knowing that even if just 0.05% prove to be soft targets, it pays for their time and effort. There's literally no other avenue being exploited to achieve the current spate of number hijackings apart from @facebook Ads & "sellers", @matigary @Mavhure @mimmitwit

Zimbabwe is the only country in the whole world where, by law, a single government minister can arbitrarily redefine mineral classifications or decree a resource exclusively reserved for black, local ownership by a simple stroke of a pen, @matigary. The catastrophic reality of this framework means even if a foreign investor deploys US$5 billion into a world-class mining operation, that whole asset can effectively be vaporized and legally trapped by the very next morning through a partisan ministerial decree. While other resource-rich nations operate within predictable, multi-decade legal horizons, Zimbabwe has institutionalised a regulatory wildcard—deliberately creating a chilling, volatile environment where multi-billion-dollar investments are always just one sudden ministerial dictate away from total liquidation. Despite the promises of @mthulincube01 & Winston Chitando in 2024, this law remains on the books. The law has had a chilling effect on mega-capital from both China & the West, with Zimbabwe only able to attract marginal capital out of Beijing, as previously noted on this tl. No one in the West or in China has raised this with Zimbabwe at all for one simple reason: Beijing believes in absolute self-determination & will never comment on the policies or laws of other countries. The Trump administration, meanwhile, has also adopted this same Beijing model: don't comment on the laws or policies of African countries and leave them to determine their own fate. So with both the West and East in agreement, their approach is one: any country is free to implement any laws it wants & capital is also free to walk away or look elsewhere. There is no national or party interest served by this half-baked state of affairs in Zimbabwe. Except, of course, to line up other peoples' investments to be taken over by favoured or corrupt "indigenous" players overnight, through ministerial decree. The Zimbabwe Chamber of Mines admitted in 2024 (while supporting this law) that the law "was targeted at the PGM mining" industry. And you'd be surprised to know on whose behalf PGM has been targeted by @ZANUPF_Official. That the law is still extant is an indication of lack of political will, despite promises from @MthuliNcube01 & the Mines Minister in 2024. This systemic instability is a feature, not a bug, of Zimbabwe governance, as proven by recent, rapid amendments to Zimbabwe’s constitution itself. Because when there is political will, we see how quickly laws & even the constitution itself, is changed & mangled to give @edmnangagwa a few more years in power. The frequent restructuring of the nation’s foundational law (often fast-tracked to consolidate executive authority or shield specific political factions) demonstrates that no legal statute in Zimbabwe is immune to political tampering. Rather than functioning as a sacrosanct framework that protects institutional predictability, the law is treated as a highly flexible instrument, easily modified to serve the immediate survival and financial interests of a narrow ruling elite. It's telling that the same political will displayed in butchering the constitution is not being brought to bear on investment climate legislature. For foreign investors, this means even a highly binding, multi-billion-dollar mining contract offers no real protection; when a state is willing to re-engineer its own supreme constitution to suit political expediency, a statutory mining agreement can be dissolved with equal ease. The steady but hesitant progress of @scott_mac_zw's @energy_invictus efforts in their massive oil/gas project is directly linked to the chilling effects of this legal framework. Although Qatar has invested in @energy_invictus now, they've done so at a minimal, toe-dipping level, as the Chinese have done in the Lithium & Rare Earths sectors. First order of business for Tagwirei is to lobby his colleagues to look at this & revise it. It's the single biggest roadblock to scaled-up capital flows into the mining industry in the country, @Mavhure @mimmitwit

There's only one reason I supported you, @edmnangagwa, after you took over in 2018. You said we must "leapfrog" our regional peers in terms of development. You made this statement on June 30, 2018, during a visit to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, ahead of the July 2018 elections. That single word, for me, captured the aspirations of everyone born since 1980 in the country (86% of everyone alive in Zim today). That statement meant you were targeting building infrastructure etc that bettered or at least equalled the most infrastructurally advanced countries in the region. It's dissapointing therefore, to see that you & the people around you are celebrating patch-working two-lane roads (such as the Harare-Masvingo highway) or painting old hospitals, mischaracterising these as cutting-edge developments. Frighteningly, every single person in government & in @ZANUPF_Official clearly thinks that "rehabilitation" of 90 year old roads is "the pinnacle of achievement". They believe this is not only enough, but so excellent that they are entitled to be in power for another 40 years! New coats of paint on crumbling hospitals, abuse of sugar tax revenue while the whole country doesn't have a single PET-scan machine. Not one. "Leapfrogging" meant that we would seek to build proper freeways instead of 1950s roads etc. It's disgusting, @edmnangagwa. Now, people around you think it more important to fight for you, Mr President, to continue ruling until you're 150years old. I have no problem with extensions etc, BUT, the scale of our national ambition must be greater than what we are currently told to celebrate. If it isn't, you don't deserve another single week in office. Policies (some of which I will speak of in another post) continue to actively dissuade both Chinese & Western investors. What we are celebrating now as "investments" from China is chump change for that country, with the same importance as a silver coin that falls down a drain. Realigning these policies to our national ambitions (regardless of party) would unlock tens of billions of dollars from China into Zim. These policies blocking blockbuster investments, as you will understand when I explain in another post, serve no party, political or sovereign interest at all. Instead of focusing on this (in addition to declaring yourself Eternal President if you wish), your henchmen are focused on inanities while asking us to applaud the crawling of a 46yr old toddler. In the last 5 years, Mozambique, a Marxist one-party state, attracted 623.5% more Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) than Zimbabwe! The only thing that made this difference was policies designed to make capital feel comfortable. And, before your choir responds with jabs at FDI, let me point out that the same things that are stopping local capital from being deployed (US$38 billion sitting idle in Zimbabwean private hands) are the same things stopping foreign capital, be it Chinese or Western. You need to go back to that "vision" that you appeared to have hoodwinked Zimbabweans with in 2018. If not, I can assure you 100% percent, even #CAA3 won't be a match for the savyness of the Zimbabwean voter in kicking your party out at the next election, whenever they may be. Peace. Out. @mimmitwit @matigary @Mavhure @MthuliNcube01 @ZANUPF_Official

As of 1 hour ago, the intended @realDonaldTrump delegation to Zimbabwe is suspended. Not cancelled, suspended. DJT & the US have absolutely no interest in telling @edmnangagwa who to appoint or how to run his country. Remember, it's Trump who shut up the garrulous & incompetent current US Ambassador to Zim. He issued a directive through @StateDept, telling US Ambassadors all over the world not to comment on host countries' elections, EXCEPT to congratulate the winner. Now, intelligence briefings must be updated with one goal in mind: ensure any future USA investors are equipped to see when investments may be directed towards personal interests instead of the most secure and profitable interests. The new instruction asks for a "4-deep" related parties dossier. There is also need to see who will be appointed to the key positions in the ministry (which currently has no PermSec & no known staff). Related parties intelligence will have to also include them when they are appointed. We are still on course for the US$15billion comprehensive investment package that we have been speaking about for months. Next post we'll discuss the one issue that Tagwireyi must address urgently in conjunction with @MthuliNcube01. It's the biggest policy red flag that has spooked even Chinese investors. The Zim government may choose to ignore this concern & that's fine. But doing so has been PROVEN to turn off both Chinese and Western capital interest in Zimbabwe, @mimmitwit @Mavhure @matigary.

South African Navi Pillay wins the Nobel Peace Prize in a direct challenge to @SecRubio & @realDonaldTrump over the @IntlCrimCourt . The Nobel Peace Prize Board just begged her on international televison to please answer her phone when she sees a Norwegian number calling. South Africa now has 5 Nobel Peace Prize Winners, @mimmitwit @matigary @Mavhure

The Satanic @IMFNews would be severely out of order to infringe on the Presidential Prerogative doctrine accepted across the world (including USA), to start with. The split isn't the issue. It was sorely needed. It was a millstone around @MthuliNcube01's neck. Finance portfolio on its own can collapse the country. Investment promotion portfolio in Zim's current context required a completely apolitical appointee who could move like fish in water both East & West. That person needed to be seen by the outside world as guided purely by national and business interests, not unasked questions about whether he would be negotiating for the country or the Mnangagwa family or even his own business interests. Yes, we can still make it work, but not without Tagwirei swiftly taking the largely symbolic measures western capital governance is watching for.

A monumental mistake by @edmnangagwa, prioritising personal prerogative at the expense of national interest. Appointing the heavily sanctioned Kuda Tagwirei to lead Zimbabwe's investment promotion portfolio is a clear signal to global markets that Harare is entirely unconcerned with Western re-engagement. Even under Zimbabwe’s "Look East Policy", the West remains an indispensable cog in global capital. Meanwhile, Beijing has proven notoriously hesitant to bail out Zimbabwe's economic strain—preferring "arm's length" financial disengagement over active backing, leaving Zimbabwe largely bypassed by the Belt and Road Initiative's infrastructure funding, for example. The legal and financial reality of Tagwirei's tenure is: U.S. Visa Ban: As an explicit target under Global Magnitsky sanctions, @secrubio’s @StateDept will automatically deny Tagwirei any visa for official state visits, trade missions, or bilateral investment tours. The U.S. only allows strictly restricted entry for mandatory UN business—nothing else. The EU: While he is not currently on the @EUCouncil sanctions list, his effectiveness in Europe is legally paralyzed. Under U.S. secondary sanctions, any global bank or corporation that accommodates him in his official capacity faces being completely frozen out of the U.S. financial system—a corporate death sentence. Also, because Visa and Mastercard are U.S. entities bound by OFAC, Tagwirei cannot even use a personal or government payment card while abroad. Every swipe will be instantly blocked. An investment promotion minister who is legally toxic to Western financial networks, physically barred from global capital hubs, and functionally ignored by a disengaged East is dead on arrival, @mimmitwit @Mavhure @matigary .

It pays to listen when some of us speak . The memo successfully reached Trump👇. (Kana tichishaura batai mazwi, @matigary). My lobbying efforts on Zimbabwe are paying off. This memo👇was published because it was clear there are people @StateDept who are against USA re-engaging Zimbabwe and there was a real risk the memo would go missing between State & @WhiteHouse if we didn't flag it publicly. It clearly worked and DJT got it! I've also consistently & repeatedly told @realDonaldTrump that his Admin should do nothing to help Zimbabwe's debt situation, @MthuliNcube01. Those who have followed me the last ~5 years know that this has been my position for years. "Help" should only be by way of encouraging private investment into Zimbabwe, especially projects like the US$15 billion mining & infrastructure proposal we've been discussing here for some months. Zimbabwe would've to make the reasonable signals and policy changes such vast sums of investment require. Those required changes are very reasonable & actually good for Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe can develop & surpass South Africa levels within 15 years without a single cent of international borrowing. As long as a conducive investment climate is fostered & constitutionally bolstered, @edmnangagwa . Debt encourages political policy laziness, wasteful expenditure & looting. Foreign debt is directly responsible for Africa's underdevelopment. (We'll unpack that another day). After trillions of US$ in loans to Africa, the continent remains verifiably the most unproductive continent on earth. Debt is the infection that causes this, not a cure to it. With every single mineral required for manufacturing EV/SI (AI) hardware stack components to be found within her borders, the only thing required to make Zim a First World country is policy changes & consistency signals. We aren't there yet. It'll also require an aggressive demonstration of respect for constitutional primacy in our affairs. I could bring in a total of US$25billion in investments for the mining/manufacturing industries TOMORROW but I keep hearing the same refrain from interested western investors. "In Zim, it appears they change rules and laws every other month." The greatest fear is: if one goes in and starts making a success of their investments, people in @ZANUPF_Official will push to change laws just so they can extract more out of your investment. It'd be very useful if people like @ChinamasaPA pay attention to this roadblock and do what needs to be done at their party to change this, @matigary @Mavhure @mimmitwit . Next, we have to talk to @BgoniJustin about the things they need to do within Zim's capital markets to unlock that US$38 billion we spoke about a couple of years ago, which is lying idle in Zimbabwean hands. That's the money that will develop Zimbabwe's foundational infrastructure to enable her to attract even more investment. Soon.

Say your government prints ZWD$5 000 today to buy US$1. Tomorrow, those who set the black market rates decide they want ZWD$6000 to part with their US$. Your government prints ZWD12 000 to buy US$2 because they don't know what the rate demand would be day after. Two days later, the black market demands ZWD$18 000 for US$2. Your government prints an extra ZWD$24 000 to buy US$ because "the President has to travel, find the money". That same day, you hear of the rate suddenly jumping to ZWD$8 000 per US$. And on it goes. Your government was one of the largest players on the black market. If you lived in Zimbabwe during that time you'll remember the puzzlement over money-changers with wrapped, brand new "bricks" of ZWD. The printing HAD to be done to meet the rate increase demands of a cash black market that had become the economy. It's a clever self-propelling mechanism: drip feeding the system gradually, while demanding more from it each passing day. The question nobody has ever been to able to answer remains: "who exactly set the black market rate every day?", Answer that honestly, not clouded by politically motivated rumour & you may begin to understand. @JamesWekwaSadza @Mavhure @matigary @mimmitwit

You wanna know how @realDonaldTrump turned round Zimbabwe's economy? Then read on. Ever wondered why the stabilisation of inflation & currency markets in Zim coincided too perfectly with the dismantling of the corrupt USAID? Then read on! In February 2025, immediately following Trump & Elon Musk's USAID freeze, month-on-month consumer inflation in Zimbabwe for the local unit dropped sharply to a near-record low of 0.5%. Month-on-month inflation for USD transactions simultaneously deflated to 0.2% The parallel market premium actually began a steady, unheralded narrowing trend toward 20%. When Musk & Trump issued that famous "Stop Work Order" on Jan 24 2025, they stopped the monthly Harare deliveries of actual pallets of USD cash on US military cargo transport planes👇. Within 14 to 30 days of the freeze, the prominent, high-volume money-changing networks in Harare experienced a sudden shortage of "crisp," sequentially numbered USD banknotes. It showed USAID & the Embassy in Harare were the single largest driving force behind Zimbabwe's spiraling, unstoppable currency and inflation pressures. @StateDept's May 15 2025 Inspector General report flagged how @USEmbZim bypassed mandatory annual approvals from Washington since 2015 to issue hundreds of millions of US$ cash payments to a network of local "NGOs" and "contractors". So, Zimbabwean authorities who previously found every single "common sense" solution they put in place not working, suddenly found their solutions "working" on the ground. The only thing that had changed was that Trump/Musk had turned off the main Engine of Chester Croker's "Make Zimbabwe's Economy Scream" strategy. Every Zimbabwean enjoying the country's new-found economic stability & growth has Trump to thank in large part. Of course, when the Democrats come back into the White House & control of the Senate, the unauditable cash airlifts to Harare will resume. After all, @JoeBiden and @HilaryClinton personally sponsored the ZIDERA sanctions law into existence in the US Senate, helped by @CoryBooker & @ChrisCoons, who were all prepared to see every single Zimbabwean die to achieve their corrupt ends. Some of us are trying to guide Zimbabwean authorities to neutralise that scenario when it inevitably comes back. But of course, they'll never listen. Perhaps you now understand why I spent 6 years lobbying Trump to smash USAID to pieces, @mimmitwit @Mavhure @matigary.

Only an idiot would get into a helicopter with all the weather warnings Zimbabwe has been getting since Friday last week. Thunderstorms and winds were forecast & it was cloudy throughout this week. If you've ever tried to drive at speed along a rutted & potholed dirt road, you'll understand why you should never, ever hop onto a helicopter when it's cloudy & windy (even if it's not raining). The feeling of lack of control of the steering you feel when driving over severely uneven surfaces, as you bounce around trying desperately to control the steering even at fair speed, is almost similar to how one loses control of a helicopter in storm winds that precede a thunderstorm, as winds buffet the 'copter from left/right/up/down randomly. In pre-thunderstorm weather like that in Zimbabwe this week, wind shears change directions instantly. When a sudden gust tilts the helicopter violently, the pilot might instinctively over-correct. Because a helicopter has a slight delay in reaction time, the pilot's frantic inputs can start fighting the wind, multiplying the chaos until the aircraft tears itself apart or crashes. A pilot might push the cyclic control forward to nose down, but a massive updraft suddenly hits the helicopter, violently tossing it upward instead. The controls stop giving predictable results in such weather. There is nothing in the world that could ever be important enough to risk hopping onto a helicopter in weather such as that in Zimbabwe this week. Remember that when you become Mbingas @mimmitwit @Mavhure @matigary #RIP Dzambarafuta Wicknell, Lulu & crew.

As an economy, Zimbabwe benefits absolutely nothing from Diaspora remittances out of South Africa, @edmnangagwa, @TreasuryZW @MthuliNcube01. South Africa is now celebrated as Zimbabwe's largest diaspora remittance source. Yet, in 2025, total estimated "hard currency" injected into the South African economy by visiting Zimbabwean nationals was ~R13.4 billion (roughly US$720 million). Diaspora remittances from SA into Zimbabwe were US$702m over the same period. So, every dollar Zimbabwe receives from South Africa in "diaspora remittances" goes straight back to that country every single year, plus another US$18m on top according to @gotosouthafrica & @StatsSA. All Zimbabweans know that the US$720m captured by SA authorities as spent by Zimbabweans is a huge underestimate. Every person reading this knows that billions of rands more are spent through runners based in SA. Established "runners" based in SA use their own Rands to purchase goods in SA while their rep in Zim gets handed US$s plus a 30% mark up. These purchases are recorded in SA as domestic sales, not Zimbabwean sales. Pinning hopes on diaspora remittances as an engine for growth is delusional under these circumstances. By the way, Zimbabwe is South Africa's Number 1 "tourism" source market worldwide @mimmitwit @Mavhure @matigary