Exorbitant LP gas prices pushing Zimbabweans deeper into poverty while powerful elites grow fatter

Tendai Ruben Mbofana

The decision by the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority to sanction a steep increase in the price of Liquefied Petroleum Gas is a profound betrayal of the ordinary citizens who have come to rely on it as a vital lifeline. 

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By adjusting the maximum retail price of gas upward, with recent regulatory reviews pushing costs close to the $2 mark at 1.96 per kilogram, the state has effectively shut the door on affordable clean energy. 

This massive surge, coming on the back of consecutive monthly hikes that saw prices jump from 1.56 per kilogram just a short season ago, is utterly unjustified in a nation where the cost of living is high and structural poverty deepens. 

It reflects an elite regulatory capture that prioritizes corporate margin protection over human survival, leaving vulnerable households to absorb the shock of global market volatility and punitive domestic pricing frameworks.

The official justification from ZERA shifts the blame entirely to external market conditions, international procurement costs, and the realities of a landlocked country that imports 100% of its petroleum products. 

While global supply chain disruptions are real, they are actively weaponized to mask aggressive margin padding within the local regulatory structure. 

The true driver behind this sudden, punishing escalation is not just the global market, but a deliberate policy choice to guarantee fat profits for a small group of politically connected mega-importers who control the bulk importation infrastructure. 

The state claims the market remains open because retailers can theoretically sell below the cap, but the ground reality is a predatory ecosystem where prices are fixed from the top down.

This exploitation is structurally hardcoded into ZERA’s mandatory price build-up formula, which wraps the product in a thick layer of state-enforced customs duties, standard value added tax, and a carbon tax of 5% of the cost, insurance, and freight value or $0.03 per litre.

​The entities standing to benefit from these exorbitant adjustments are not the small-scale suburban resellers, but the massive energy conglomerates, the state treasury, and the political elite pulling the strings behind the scenes. 

The financial windfall flows directly to the individuals who control the physical storage and logistics bottlenecks. 

This includes operations like Zuva Petroleum, tied directly to political networks of figures like central bank governor John Mushayavanhu, and dominant private indigenous importers like Pandi Energy. 

By compounding percentage-based taxes on top of inflated international procurement costs, the government turns public misery into state revenue.

Every price hike guaranteed by ZERA actively insulates these billionaire cartels and the state treasury, which rakes in transaction taxes, regulatory levies, and import duties at border posts like Forbes and Beitbridge, while the general public is financially bled.

For the average household, this relentless price inflation is catastrophic. 

Over the past decade, urban families systematically migrated toward gas as a reliable alternative to the national grid, which has been crippled by endless electricity cuts, corruption, and unaffordable tariffs. 

Now, that alternative has been violently priced out of reach. 

The burden falls heaviest on residents of newly established urban settlements that remain completely disconnected from the national grid, as well as rural populations where electricity has never existed. 

In a country where formal wages are stagnant or nonexistent, forcing a family to part with an ever-greater share of their meager earnings just to cook a pot of sadza is an act of economic violence. 

It strips away dignity, forcing citizens to choose between buying basic food items or securing the energy required to cook them.

The environmental fallout of this policy failure is immediate and devastating. 

When clean, efficient cooking gas becomes a luxury item, people do not stop eating; they simply revert to survival mode. 

Across the country, urban greenbelts and pristine rural forests are being rapidly decimated as desperate citizens pick up axes and saws to forage for firewood. 

This massive regression to biomass energy undoes years of conservation efforts and accelerates deforestation, soil erosion, and severe environmental degradation. 

The state is effectively forcing its own population to plunder the natural ecosystem to survive, triggering long-term ecological destruction that will take generations to reverse. 

Furthermore, the toxic indoor air pollution generated by burning wood in poorly ventilated spaces introduces severe long-term respiratory health crises for women and children who bear the brunt of domestic chores.

A responsible government does not sit idly by, hiding behind international price indexes while its citizens burn their own forests to survive. 

A leadership committed to socio-economic justice would immediately intervene to shield the public from corporate greed. 

The state must urgently overhaul the current pricing model by dismantling the heavy tax burdens, customs duties, and regulatory levies that artificially inflate the cost of imported gas. 

Beyond simple tax relief, the administration should implement targeted, state-funded subsidies on liquid petroleum gas specifically directed toward low-income households and off-grid communities. 

True governance demands that clean energy be classified as a fundamental social right.

Not a commodity to be exploited by a protected cartel of multi-millionaire distributors while the majority of the nation languishes in economic darkness.

• 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