PART TWO: CAA3 and the Political Economy of Zimbabwe: Why the Working-Class Must Reject Constitutional Authoritarianism 

by Tafadzwa Choto

PART TWO: THE PROCESS OF ELITE ENRICHMENT

Part two of Tafadzwa Choto’s series on the constitutional amendments in Zimbabwe explains the forms of accumulation that have strengthened Zimbabwe’s ruling class. 

Economic growth has therefore not translated into broad-based social development. Instead, it has strengthened a capitalist class with a growing interest in protecting its wealth and political influence.

This process of elite enrichment has been driven by three interconnected mechanisms: (i) accumulation through resource extraction, (ii) accumulation through state procurement and public tenders, and (iii) austerity measures that shift the burden of economic crisis onto workers and the poor.

1. Accumulation Through Resource Extraction

Zimbabwe possesses vast deposits of gold, platinum, diamonds, lithium, and other strategic minerals. The growing demand for critical minerals, coupled with record-high gold prices driven by global economic instability, has made Zimbabwe’s extractive sector increasingly profitable.

The recent global surge in gold prices has provided Zimbabwe with an unprecedented opportunity to generate national wealth. Gold has become Zimbabwe’s largest foreign currency earner, with export revenues rising significantly over the last two years as international prices reached record levels. Yet the benefits of this boom have not been shared equitably. Investigations such as Al Jazeera’s Gold Mafia documentary exposed networks involving politically connected individuals, state officials, and business elites accused of using gold smuggling and illicit financial flows to extract enormous wealth from the country. While export earnings have expanded dramatically, ordinary Zimbabweans have seen little improvement in wages, healthcare, education, housing, or social protection. The gold boom has therefore deepened rather than reduced inequality.

The contrast with other countries is instructive. In countries such as South Korea, periods of rapid economic growth and technological expansion have been accompanied by significant public investment, social spending, and the redistribution of economic gains through social programmes. In Zimbabwe, by contrast, the benefits of the mineral boom have largely accrued to politically connected elites, foreign investors, and multinational corporations. What could have become a source of collective prosperity has instead become another mechanism of elite accumulation.

However, the immense wealth generated from these resources has not benefited the majority of Zimbabweans. Instead, mineral revenues have been concentrated in the hands of politically connected businesspeople and multinational corporations. Lucrative mining deals involving foreign capital, particularly from China and the United Arab Emirates, have generated enormous profits for a small elite while mining communities continue to experience poverty, environmental degradation, displacement, and inadequate public services.

The extraction of Zimbabwe’s mineral wealth reflects a classic pattern of accumulation in peripheral capitalist economies: natural resources are commodified and exported for private profit while the social costs are borne by workers and local communities. Rather than serving as a foundation for broad-based development, industrialisation, or social welfare, mineral wealth has become a central mechanism through which the ruling elite accumulates capital and reproduces its political dominance.

In this sense, resource extraction has become a pillar of Zimbabwe’s contemporary political economy, reinforcing both class inequality and authoritarian tendencies. The struggle over constitutional reforms such as CAA3 cannot, therefore, be separated from the struggle over who controls the country’s wealth and whose interests the state ultimately serves.

2. Accumulation Through State Tenders and the Rise of Tenderpreneurs

A second source of elite accumulation has been the expansion of state-funded infrastructure projects and the growth of a politically connected class of tenderpreneurs. Under the banner of modernisation and development, millions of dollars have been channelled into public infrastructure projects. However, these projects have simultaneously created lucrative opportunities for politically connected businesses to accumulate wealth through state contracts.

Major projects such as the construction of the new Parliament building in Mount Hampden, the expansion of the RG Mugabe International Airport, the upgrading of the Beitbridge Border Post, road rehabilitation programmes, dam construction projects, and the ongoing road dualization initiatives have been presented as symbols of national development. Many contracts have been awarded under opaque conditions, with limited public scrutiny and weak accountability mechanisms. Companies with close links to political elites have repeatedly secured lucrative tenders, often at highly inflated costs. In numerous cases, projects experience significant delays, cost overruns, or remain incomplete despite substantial public expenditure.

The dualization of major roads provides a revealing example. Several road projects have taken years to complete, while others remain unfinished despite repeated announcements and budget allocations. The long-promised dualization of key urban roads, including sections of Harare Drive and other strategic transport corridors, has proceeded slowly or stalled altogether. Similarly, a number of energy and solar projects announced with great fanfare have failed to materialise or have been left incomplete.

What emerges is not simply a programme of infrastructure development but a system of accumulation through state procurement. Public resources are transferred into private hands through contracts, subcontracting arrangements, inflated pricing, and repeated project extensions. Infrastructure thus becomes a vehicle for private enrichment rather than a means of addressing the social needs of the majority.

This process has contributed to the rise of a new class of tenderpreneurs whose fortunes depend less on productive investment and innovation than on access to political power and state contracts. Their economic success is inseparable from their proximity to the ruling elite and their ability to secure privileged access to public funds.

The contradiction is stark. While billions are spent on projects that generate profits for politically connected contractors, public hospitals continue to face shortages of medicines, equipment, and personnel. Schools remain underfunded, teachers are paid poverty wages, and programmes such as the BEAM is owed millions of dollars. Social welfare programmes remain chronically under-resourced even as public debt continues to rise.

3. Making Workers Pay for the Crisis: Austerity as Class Warfare

The third pillar why the elite want CAA3 is how the state has been able to accumulate through the imposition of austerity measures that have shifted the burden of Zimbabwe’s economic crisis onto working class and the peasants.

Following the introduction of the Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP) in 2018 by the finance minister Mthuli Ncube, the government embarked on a programme of fiscal consolidation designed to reassure international financial institutions, foreign investors, and domestic capital. While presented as necessary for restoring macroeconomic stability, austerity effectively became a mechanism for transferring the costs of economic restructuring from the state and capital onto the working class.

The cornerstone of this strategy was the reduction of public expenditure, particularly the wage bill. Government officials, business leaders, and international financial institutions celebrated the decline in employment costs as evidence of fiscal discipline. Yet behind the language of “stabilisation” and “reform” was a sustained assault on workers’ living standards.

The introduction of a local currency and repeated currency reforms accelerated the erosion of wages. Workers across both the public and private sectors experienced a dramatic collapse in their real incomes as salaries failed to keep pace with inflation and currency depreciation. Teachers who had previously earned the equivalent of more than US$400 per month saw their salaries collapse to levels as low as US$60 by 2021. University lecturers and other public-sector professionals experienced similar declines, with lecturers seeing their earnings fall from the equivalent of over US$2,000 per month to less than US$500.

The government wage bill fell significantly during the austerity period. While it accounted for approximately 90–92% of government revenues in 2018 (African Report, July 2021), the implementation of austerity measures reduced it to about 40%. In subsequent years, however, the wage bill increased again, fluctuating between 42% and 52% of government revenues. This decline reflected the state’s efforts to contain public expenditure, largely through wage suppression and restrictions on public-sector employment. This reduction was celebrated by the government, international financial institutions, and investors as a major achievement of fiscal consolidation. For workers, however, it translated into declining real wages, deteriorating working conditions, and the continued erosion of public services.

Austerity was not confined to wage reductions. Recruitment in the public sector was curtailed, leading to chronic staff shortages in education, healthcare, and other essential services. Hospitals remained understaffed, schools faced growing teacher shortages, and public institutions struggled to provide basic services despite increasing social need.

The consequences have been far-reaching. As formal employment opportunities contracted, millions of Zimbabweans were pushed into the informal economy, characterised by insecurity, low incomes, and the absence of social protection. Informalisation has become a defining feature of Zimbabwe’s political economy, with workers increasingly forced to survive through precarious forms of employment. Women and young people have been disproportionately affected, reflecting the gendered and generational dimensions of the capitalist crisis.

Workers continue to bear the costs of monetary instability. Many receive 50% portion of their wages in ZiG while paying for goods and services priced in US$. This arrangement effectively transfers the risks of currency depreciation onto workers while allowing businesses to preserve profit margins. In practice, it constitutes a continuous redistribution of wealth from labour to capital.

At the same time, ordinary citizens face escalating charges for passports, driver’s licences, vehicle registration, title deeds, and a range of other government services. These fees function as an additional burden on the working class, already struggling with declining incomes. Yet despite this extraction of revenue from the population, public services remain underfunded, hospitals lack essential medicines and equipment, schools face chronic shortages, and social support programmes such as BEAM frequently fail to meet growing demand.

Austerity in Zimbabwe is not merely an economic policy but a class project. It has enabled the state to reduce labour costs, create conditions favourable for capital accumulation, and channel resources towards politically connected elites while shifting the costs of crisis onto workers. Zimbabwe’s much-publicised economic recovery has therefore been built not on improving the livelihoods of the majority but on intensifying exploitation, weakening organised labour, and protecting the profits of a politically connected capitalist class.

Austerity, resource extraction, and tenderpreneurship have become three interconnected pillars of accumulation that have strengthened Zimbabwe’s emerging capitalist elite. It is within this context of growing inequality and class consolidation that CAA3 must be understood.