Tagwirei can’t be compared to Rhodes – one merely extracts; the other built

Tendai Ruben Mbofana

The recent explosion of a leaked audio recording involving a controversial self-styled prophet has blown the lid off what many Zimbabweans have whispered for years. 

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By comparing prominent businessman Kudakwashe Tagwirei to the nineteenth-century imperialist Cecil John Rhodes, the leak exposed a chilling narrative of modern elite capture. 

The tape alleges an ambition so vast that it includes controlling the presidency, acquiring millions of acres of land, and securing total dominance over fuel, banking, mining, and even private healthcare. 

Yet, while the structural comparison on paper seems clear, equating the two figures introduces a profound historical error. 

We must make a massive distinction. 

As an agent of brutal colonial dispossession, Rhodes was undeniably an oppressor, but he operated on an empire-building model. 

Tagwirei operates on a model of pure, unadulterated value extraction.

To understand why this distinction matters to ordinary Zimbabweans, one must look strictly at the mechanics of economics and infrastructure. 

Rhodes and his British South Africa Company owned the territory they seized, but their long-term survival depended on building a self-sustaining, highly productive industrial base. 

To anchor his vision of an empire, Rhodes had to plant deep, domestic fixed capital. 

The consequence of his exploits was the creation of physical and economic foundations that outlasted him by a century. 

Real industries were developed to produce for both local and foreign markets.

Under that colonial model, tangible employment was created. 

Urban centers sprouted from the soil, and flourishing farmlands emerged to feed not just the nation, but the entire southern African region. 

Major highway and rail grids were laid down to connect these farming and mining hubs to the rest of the world. 

Power stations, schools, hospitals, housing, and sporting facilities were constructed because the extractive machinery required functional infrastructure to operate. 

The very houses many Zimbabweans still live in today are the physical artifacts of that era. 

There was a visible, permanent infrastructure left behind.

Contrast this with the empire built by Tagwirei. 

His footprint across the Zimbabwean economy yields no discernible advantage to ordinary citizens. 

If anything, his vast corporate monopolies are actively plunging the population deeper into poverty. 

Rather than creating new wealth or developing new industries, his model centers on capturing and taxing the existing, struggling economy.

Nowhere is this predatory extraction more evident than in the fuel sector. 

By establishing a tight monopoly over the country’s fuel infrastructure and pipelines, Tagwirei has cornered the literal lifeblood of local commerce. 

The direct consequence is that Zimbabweans are forced to buy petrol and diesel that ranks as the second most expensive on the African continent. 

This artificial premium acts as a punishing tariff on every local business, driving up the cost of transport, basic foods, manufacturing, and daily survival. 

It builds nothing; it simply drains the pockets of ordinary commuters and families to enrich a singular elite.

The same tragic story plays out in the mining sector. 

When Kuvimba Mining House—the opaque corporate vehicle widely exposed as a front for Tagwirei’s shadow empire—took over the long-collapsed Zimbabwe Iron and Steel Company, or Ziscosteel, in 2022, the surrounding communities were fed grand promises of a multi-billion-dollar resuscitation. 

Extensive investigations by The Sentry and local corporate registry filings later blew the lid off this public-private facade, proving that Kuvimba’s private 35% stake was held via Ziwa Resources by Pfimbi Resources—a shell company directly controlled by Tagwirei and his wife. 

A revived steel giant was supposed to bring thousands of jobs back to the Midlands and kickstart national industrialization. 

Instead, what the nation has witnessed is a masterclass in stagnation and asset management failures. 

While raw iron ore reserves worth hundreds of millions of dollars are targeted for disposal to generate quick cash, the actual blast furnaces of Redcliff remain completely silent. 

The promised resuscitation has yielded little more than a corporate shield for elite enrichment, while the local population continues to starve amidst the rusting relics of past industrial greatness.

This legacy of drain over development was perfectly crystallized in the Command Agriculture scandal. 

Investigative reports by The Sentry exposed how Tagwirei’s Sakunda Holdings was handed a $1.28 billion non-tender contract under the guise of food security, only to run a scheme that served as a parallel budget. 

According to their findings, the program bled $280 million in surplus state funds into private pockets through Treasury Bills, leaving ordinary citizens with nothing but hyperinflation and a ballooning national debt.

This is the core of the tragedy. 

Rhodes left behind an entire physical and industrial state apparatus. 

Tagwirei’s model of state capture—which allegedly extends its reach into key ministries, the judiciary, state security, and the private medical sector—leaves behind nothing but hollowed-out institutions. 

It is a system built entirely on acquisition and self-enrichment, where wealth flows upward into offshore accounts while leaving behind a trail of deindustrialization and public misery. 

Tagwirei cannot be compared to Rhodes. 

One built a highly productive economy to sustain an empire, while the other merely extracts the remaining marrow from the bones of a suffering nation.

• 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