Zimbabwe’s efforts to attract foreign investment in the energy sector are being hindered by high upfront costs associated with verifying and assessing individual projects, according to a Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) survey.
Industry experts have warned that the cost of hiring a foreign firm to verify and assess energy projects in Zimbabwe is prohibitively high, eating into initial capital outlays and deterring investment in the sector.
The ZNCC’s 56-page report titled, 2024 Annual State of Industry and Commerce Survey, offers insights into how high costs of verification has become a barrier to entry for many investors.
he US Agency for International Development (USAID) has suspended a grant agreement with a Zimbabwe-based partner as part of a reevaluation of US foreign aid under a recent executive order.
Effective January 24, 2025, the implementing partner was instructed to halt all activities and minimize costs associated with the award during the suspension period. The directive also mandates an immediate end to all Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA)-related activities under ongoing USAID agreements.
Air carrier KLM Royal Dutch Airlines has announced plans to end its freight operations to Harare, beginning this April, due to operational challenges associated with the service.
This emerged in a notice to customers by Tiger Freight’s Managing Director Pim de Wit who was quick to assure customers the shipping services provider was exploring measures to mitigate the looming crisis.
“KLM’s decision to reduce their African freighter operations to three flights weekly, with Harare no longer included, is a result of their evolving fleet priorities and operational efficiency concerns,” said the Tiger Freight boss.
Zimbabwe’s horticulture industry said it will take advantage of regional airfreight hubs to move produce in light of the recent suspension of the KLM/MartinAir service to Harare.
KLM has provided a link to Zimbabwe’s largest market destination, Amsterdam, which serves as the gateway for Zimbabwean produce into the broader EU market for 27 years.
After servicing the route for close to three decades, the Royal Dutch Airlines announced it was ending its freight operations to Harare, beginning this April, due to operational challenges.
Frequent 48-hour delays, cancellations, and rescheduling have impacted Harare flights and the decision to halt the freight service “was influenced by the short flight leg, lack of local maintenance facilities, and unstable freight”.
A Chinese company duped the Environmental Management Agency (EMA) after entering a partnership to close open pits left by artisanal miners in Umzingwane River, only to be found carrying out riverbed mining.
EMA terminated the partnership with the company called Friends of the Environment, but it is not clear if anyone was prosecuted.
The revelation was made last week by Tafadzwa Muguti, the secretary for presidential affairs and devolution in the president’s office who visited the catchment areas of major dams in Matabeleland South to witness the environmental catastrophe caused by illegal mining.
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) has expressed concern over the growing number of companies scaling back operations or closing entirely due to the country’s challenging economic environment, leaving thousands of workers unemployed.
In a statement on Monday, ZCTU Acting Secretary General, Runesu Dzimiri, highlighted the severe operational difficulties facing the retail and wholesale sectors.
Some businesses have already shut down, downsized, or exited the Zimbabwean market, resulting in widespread retrenchments and uncertainty for remaining employees.
Dzimiri pointed out that many of the closures are attributed to flawed fiscal and monetary policies, which are driving retail businesses out of the market.
The rapid adoption of generative AI tools in high-income countries is transforming education, with students and teachers using AI to enhance learning and streamline tasks. However, the digital divide and limited internet access in developing countries, including Zimbabwe, underscore the need to prioritise foundational literacy, numeracy and life skills to ensure the effective utilisation of AI in education. The latest data from the International Telecommunication Union’s “Facts and Figures 2023” report indicates that internet penetration in Africa stood at 37 percent in 2023.
Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion minister Mthuli Ncube has dismissed the rate at which firms are struggling or exiting the market, citing that local investors could close the gap amid an increasing number of businesses entering corporate rescue or exiting Zimbabwe.
The response from the minister comes as companies such as Botswana retailer Choppies Enterprise Limited (Choppies) and British multinational professional services and fast-moving consumer goods firms, PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited and Unilever plc, respectively, announced their exits from Zimbabwe last year.
This is a Letter about sugar, what’s happening to the people that grow and mill it, the government’s sugar tax, the money it raised and the questions that don’t leave a sweet taste in your mouth at all.
Almost a year ago, In February 2024, the government of Zimbabwe introduced a Sugar Tax saying it wanted to reduce excessive sugar consumption that was bad for our health. The tax was US$0.02 cents per gram of sugar in soft drinks. An outcry from manufactures led the tax to be reduced to US$0.002 cents per gram and now, a year later, the tax is due to be reduced to US$0.0005 cents a gram but doctors want to know what’s happened to the money raised from the Sugar Tax so far.
Zimbabwe is struggling to bring under control the cholera outbreak that began late last year. Instead, the disease is spreading to eight districts and has affected over 300 people in the last three months.The outbreak that began on November 4, 2024, in Kariba districts had on January 20 spread to five of the country’s 10 provinces.
As of 21 January 2025, Zimbabwe has recorded 302 suspected cholera cases, 30 confirmed cases, and 286 recoveries,” said in an update on Tuesday.“There are four cumulative deaths, two deaths were confirmed and are institutional deaths whilst two are suspected deaths who died in the community.
United States (US) President Donald Trump’s decision to halt the global power’s donor funding for 90 days pending policy review could affect several of its humanitarian projects in Zimbabwe which had been funded to the tune of approximately US$360 million in 2024.
Trump announced in an Executive Order yesterday that the US would institute a 90-day pause in foreign development assistance for assessment of programmatic efficiency and consistency with United States foreign policy.
Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion minister Mthuli Ncube in his 2025 national budget presented to and approved by Parliament last year said Zimbabwe was expecting at least US$800 million from development partners.
Zimbabwean health experts have raised concern over the newly-inaugurated United States President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw his country from the World Health Organisation (WHO) saying the world’s largest economy was one of the major funders of the United Nations agency.
Analysts told NewsDay yesterday that Trump’s decision will affect the country’s health delivery programme funded through WHO.
Medical and Dental Private Practitioners of Zimbabwe Association president Johannes Marisa said the withdrawal would be a serious blow to international health systems.
Tendai Westerhof, Pan-African Positive Women’s Coalition Zimbabwe’s national director, echoed the same sentiments highlighting issues of sustainability.
“80% of our funding comes from external donors and we only have 20% that we mobilise locally.