by MANGALISO TSHUMA
BULAWAYO – ZIMBABWE’S economy, though nominally larger than that of neighbouring Zambia, continues to underperform dramatically—a failure increasingly attributed to the dominance of informal and grey economic activity that escapes state oversight but is visible everywhere in Bulawayo and Harare.
Political analysts note that this distortion cannot be separated from decades of corruption, patronage networks, and extractive governance under the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU–PF).
Since the early 2000s, state institutions—from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) to mining parastatals—have been hollowed out by elite cartels, turning public resources into private wealth while starving the formal economy of capital.
The result is an economic system where official statistics project strength, yet the country’s fundamentals remain dangerously weak.
It is within this context that economic commentator Cde Sinyoro Reflection contrasted Zimbabwe’s leaking economy with Zambia’s more stable trajectory.
He questioned why Zambia, with a smaller gross domestic product (GDP), consistently outperforms Zimbabwe.
In 2025, Zambia’s economy is valued at roughly US$26 billion with a healthy US$5.2 billion in forex reserves.
Zimbabwe’s GDP, at an estimated US$52 billion, is paired with a meagre US$1 billion in reserves.
“One of these numbers is honest,” Sinyoro remarked. “The other is a confession of what the State cannot control.”
He argues that Zimbabwe effectively operates three economies, which are the formal economy – the smallest but most taxed sector. It generates official GDP figures, paperwork, and compliance, yet contributes almost nothing to forex reserves due to restrictive retention policies that suffocate productive industries.
The second one is informal economy, which he said was dominant, dollarised, unbanked, and unrecorded. Roughly 70% of daily transactions occur here, creating value but bypassing the reserve system entirely.
The third one is grey economy, which he said was the true powerhouse, driven by opaque mineral flows, fuel cartels, illicit forex networks, and luxury import markets.
This sector thrives in the governance gaps created by years of corruption and political protection for well-connected actors.
“Zambia has one economy. Zimbabwe has three,” Sinyoro observed, noting that Zambia’s copper sector follows a simple and transparent chain: mined, exported, declared, taxed, and banked. Zimbabwe’s mineral chain, by contrast, is “a maze.”
He points to gold from syndicates, lithium from both licensed and illicit pits, chrome side-streams, platinum by-products, and diamonds from shadow channels—all routinely smuggled or under-declared. Revenues rarely reach the Treasury, RBZ, ZIMRA, or any formal ledger.
“The minerals leave as rocks and return as cars and fuel,” he said, referring to the explosion of car lots, luxury SUVs, and bakkie fleets across the country.
“That is where Zambia wins—and where Zimbabwe bleeds.”
