Zimbabwe needs genuine investment partners that build real value, not protected parasites: the Geo Pomona scandal

Tendai Ruben Mbofana

When a nation confuses genuine investment with political patronage, its citizens are the ones who ultimately pay the heavy price.

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The controversial deal involving Geo Pomona Waste Management stands as a stark, distressing warning of this reality.

If we look closely at how Geo Pomona was originally imposed upon the city of Harare, we see a template for forced municipal compliance.

Yet the injustice did not stop in the capital.

It is now being systematically imposed on the rest of Zimbabwe’s local authorities through the National Project Status granted by President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government in April 2022.

Today, we witness the exact same authoritarian push to force Geo Pomona onto the city of Bulawayo, disregarding local autonomy and community needs entirely.

An analysis of this situation reveals how the imposition of politically-linked development partners is fundamentally unsustainable.

First, they cannot outlive their political patron once he leaves office, leaving behind a trail of abandoned commitments.

Second, the reported costs of an estimated US$2.7 million a month paid by the city of Harare are counter-productive.

These massive expenditures can never be equated to the actual benefit the city is deriving from Geo Pomona.

Can we seriously and honestly say that simply collecting waste on time and rehabilitating a single dumpsite is worth US$2.7 million a month?

It defies all economic logic and moral sense.

These exorbitant costs are now likely to be replicated across all our urban areas in Zimbabwe, where local service delivery is already in a disastrous state due to a chronic lack of adequate funds.

For instance, my hometown of Redcliff is reportedly looking into working with Geo Pomona.

Yet Redcliff is a town that currently struggles to provide consistent running water to its residents, where refuse collection is completely haphazard, and where roads remain in a deeply sorry state.

How then can a broken municipality be expected to fork out millions of dollars to Geo Pomona?

This reckless arrangement will inevitably result in much higher utility bills for impoverished residents.

Alternatively, if the money is subtracted from so-called devolution funds, it will directly result in compromised service delivery for essential community needs.

One must ask a very logical and practical question.

Can this money, even at a cheaper rate, not actually be used to capacitate the local authorities themselves in their own waste management operations?

Empowering councils to buy their own equipment creates enduring local capacity.

What we are seeing here with Geo Pomona is nothing less than a parasitic company that is leveraging its close proximity to power to fleece the people of Zimbabwe for absolutely no equal benefit.

Curiously and disturbingly, the company’s CEO, Delish Nguwaya, has even been appointed as Special Advisor to the President on Waste Management.

This is the exact same Nguwaya who was famously named in a US$60 million COVID-19 medical supply and drug procurement scandal through a contract awarded to Drax International by the Zimbabwean government.

When individuals tied to past scandals are rewarded with high-level advisory roles and multi-million-dollar contracts, the message sent to citizens is one of total impunity.

This imposition of Geo Pomona is not only greedy and selfish, but it is dangerously shortsighted and destructive.

Once the leader protecting Geo Pomona eventually leaves office, all these opaque tenders are likely to be cancelled by a new government.

But by the time that happens, local authorities would have lost millions if not billions of dollars for nothing more than basic bin emptying.

In all this time, genuine local service delivery would have been severely and irreparably compromised.

We can clearly see a striking parallel with the Alpha Omega Dairy, which was owned by the former first family, the Mugabes.

On the surface, they appeared to operate a very successful dairy company that symbolized national agricultural progress.

Yet it was primarily fed through imposed government contracts, likely overcharging and milking the national fiscus for all it was worth.

But the moment Robert Mugabe was removed from power, Alpha Omega fell spectacularly and vanished from relevance.

At the end of the day, can anyone truly say the country benefited anything of note from the Alpha Omega deal?

Were the millions of dollars spent on milk, yogurt, and ice cream bought by government departments really worth it for a struggling nation?

Zimbabwe urgently needs genuine investment partners that add real value and not politically protected parasites.

True national development must always honor the dignity of our people and protect our public resources from predatory exploitation.

Citizens deserve leaders who prioritize community well-being over private enrichment.

• *Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. Please feel free to contact him on +263715667700 or *

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