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This is not idle talk. Insiders describe the campaign as spearheaded by Mnangagwa allies such as Midlands minister Owen Ncube and Garwe. Garwe's ministry is the delivery mechanism — distributing roller meal to 1,500 families in Murehwa, controlling war veterans' housing schemes with Mnangagwa ally Paul Tungwarara, and deciding whose settlement is legal.
The Inner Circle
Garwe's network illustrates the fusion of politics, land and capital under the Second Republic:
- *President Emmerson Mnangagwa* — patron. Garwe's rise mirrors Mnangagwa's need for a builder-technocrat who can also mobilize a province.
- *Owen Ncube and Tino Machakaire* — fellow ED2030 enforcers in the Midlands and youth wings.
- *Kudakwashe Tagwirei* — the sanctioned fuel tycoon whose billions are, according to party insiders, bankrolling the Central Committee push for term extension.
- *Billy Rautenbach* — the veteran businessman and Mnangagwa ally. Garwe is "accused of stripping residential stands from nearly 100 former Members of Parliament... and reallocating the property to... Billy Rautenbach" in Goromonzi.
- *Paul Tungwarara* — the presidential housing fixer with whom Garwe signed a 50,000-stand scheme for war veterans. 3569
Demolitions: Murambatsvina's Ghost
Nothing defines Garwe's current tenure like demolitions.
Zimbabwe remembers Operation Murambatsvina — Operation Drive Out Filth — in May 2005, when Robert Mugabe's government bulldozed informal homes and markets. The UN estimated 700,000 people lost homes or livelihoods.
Since late 2024, Harare has been on its largest demolition campaign since then. The numbers, reported by The Sunday Mail and The Herald, are stark: more than 5,000 houses face demolition under 37 High Court orders, in Kuwadzana, Budiriro, Glen View, Mabvuku, Belvedere and Mabelreign.
Garwe has played both arsonist and firefighter. In November 2024, he intervened to stop the opposition-led Harare City Council, calling its 7-day notices "inhumane".
> "What City Council is doing is inhumane and it is not acceptable. A person takes six months building a house and you are watching. Then you want to come and give them a notice of 7 days... From now onwards no house is going to be demolished. We are stopping them," he told NewsDay.
Weeks later, he reversed course, revealing that the council "is sitting on about 5,000 house demolition orders" and warning that unregulated settlements "can be a threat to public health". In joint inspections with Mayor Jacob Mafume, his ministry warned that "unapproved structures, whether completed or partially built, will be demolished in line with applicable statutes."
The public reaction has been a weary cynicism. For residents, the difference between Murambatsvina and today is legalistic, not material. Murambatsvina was state-led, militarized, and explicitly political — punishment of urban opposition voters. The current wave is municipal-led, legalistic, and driven by a chaotic land market of barons, chiefs' "sabuku deals," and council corruption. But the bulldozer sounds the same.
As one residents' association put it: "A bulldozer cannot be the primary instrument of land administration." Human rights groups note that Murambatsvina did not reduce the housing shortage. It relocated it.
Garwe understands this contradiction. He is both the minister who must enforce planning law and the politician whose base is built on promising land to the landless. He halts demolitions before SADC summits to avoid "negative attention," accusing the opposition council of timing them for diplomatic embarrassment — then authorizes them after. 7286
In the New York Times tradition, the story of Daniel Garwe is not about houses. It is about what happens when a builder becomes the custodian of other people's homes, and when the extension of a building project — Vision 2030 — becomes the justification for extending a presidency
🔴THE BUILDER, THE ENFORCER, AND THE TRUE BELIEVER: Daniel Garwe and the New Politics of Concrete in Zimbabwe
▪️GARWE— In Zimbabwe's ruling party, power has always been measured in land. Daniel Garwe, the 56-year-old Minister of Local Government and Public Works, has spent his career acquiring both.
A quantity surveyor by training, Garwe's biography is a parable of the Second Republic. Before politics, he was a builder. The official record says he "worked in the construction industry before joining politics and owns Planet Building" and holds interests in Hastream Enterprises, Macheke Motors trading as Sebakwe Range Farm, and the Kudakawashe and Tafadzwa Garwe Family Trust.
His academic credentials are more contested. A 2024 petition by ZANU-PF cadres in his own Mashonaland East Province accused him of misrepresenting his qualifications to President Emmerson Mnangagwa, "falsely claiming to hold a degree when, in reality, he only possesses a diploma in Quantity Surveying from Harare Polytechnic". It is a telling charge in a party obsessed with technocratic legitimacy.
Pre-2017: The Outsider Contractor
Before the November 2017 coup that toppled Robert Mugabe, Garwe was not a politician. He was part of the class of indigenous contractors who thrived on government tenders under ZANU-PF's indigenization drive. Unlike the securocrats who engineered Operation Restore Legacy, his capital was concrete, not camouflage.
The coup was his opening. As the military cleared space for Emmerson Mnangagwa, it also cleared space for businessmen who could finance the new politics.
2017-2023: From Backbencher to Cabinet Landlord
Garwe was elected to the National Assembly in 2018 for Murehwa North with a 7,655-vote majority. On Nov. 8, 2019, Mnangagwa split the Local Government ministry and made Garwe Zimbabwe's first Minister of National Housing and Social Amenities, a post he held until April 2024.
It was a perfect fit. His mandate was to solve a 1.5-million-unit housing backlog through public-private partnerships. In practice, it made him the gatekeeper for state land, joint-venture housing estates, and the lucrative regularization of informal settlements.
During this period he emerged as a core Mnangagwa loyalist. He survived the 2023 cabinet reshuffle when many July Moyo allies did not, and was promoted in April 2024 to the super-ministry of Local Government and Public Works — the ministry that controls all 92 local authorities, traditional leaders, and urban planning.
Post-2023: Chairman of the 2030 Project
If July Moyo was Mnangagwa's cartographer, Garwe is his evangelist.
As ZANU-PF provincial chairman for Mashonaland East and Local Government minister, Garwe has become the most vocal proponent of the ED2030 agenda — the campaign to extend Mnangagwa's rule beyond the constitutionally mandated two terms ending in 2028.
"When we go to Mutare, me and other provincial chairmen are going to call for the implementation of resolution number 1 that was adopted last year, that President Mnangagwa should remain the ruling party First Secretary and President until he sees through his vision in 2030 and beyond," he told state media ahead of the party's Mutare conference.
He has refined the message into a semantic shield. "We are simply saying, 'President, take us to 2030.' We never mentioned a third term, so let's not put words in our mouths," he argued at a provincial coordinating committee in Marondera. In that same speech he added a crucial rider: councillors, MPs and senators would also remain in office until 2030.
At the Herbert Chitepo School of Ideology, before 1,300 councillors, he took it further into the divine. "Vision is from God that should continue in office," he said. A month earlier he declared amending the Constitution was "both constitutional and democratic" and told supporters flatly: "There will be no election in 2028."[Mnangagwa]
🔴CHINA TRADE DEAL
Zero Tariffs to China: 8,949 Product Lines — What It Means for Zimbabwe's Farmers and Manufacturers
▪️The activation of Zimbabwe's participation in China's Pre-Early Harvest Initiative opens the world's largest market to Zimbabwean exports without import tax. For tobacco — Zimbabwe's biggest agricultural export — the 10% Chinese tariff is now zero. For horticultural exports (avocados, citrus, macadamia nuts, blueberries), tariffs that exceeded 10% are now eliminated. Cotton, leather, and essential oils are also included. ZimTrade manages certification; ZIMRA enforces compliance. Analysts say the key bottleneck is now logistics and cold-chain infrastructure — the tariff opportunity exists, but Zimbabwean exporters need better packaging, certification, and direct freight links to Chinese ports.
Source: Xinhua / NewsDay / https://t.co/aTjUCNU759 · 22 Jul 2026
🔴HOLY TEN AND THE $500 BAIL THAT INSULTS A CHILD
Threats of murder
Physical restraint by 4 men
Rape
Bail unopposed
▪️Let us be precise about what happened. On 20 July 2026, a 14-year-old Zimbabwean schoolgirl was allegedly lured to what she believed was a music video shoot in Avondale. When her friend left at around 6pm, she was allegedly driven by Mukudzei Chitsama — 27 years old, known as Holy Ten, one of Zimbabwe's most famous young musicians — to a Hatfield bed and breakfast.
According to the prosecution, she arrived to find a gathering composed entirely of adult men. What allegedly followed, in the words of the Nehanda Radio report, involved threats of murder, physical restraint by four accomplices, and rape.
Chitsama appeared in court on 22 July. The State — our prosecution service, acting in the name of justice — did not oppose bail. The magistrate granted US$500 bail.
Five hundred US dollars.
We are not saying Chitsama is guilty. He is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. The bail conditions imposed — weekly police reporting, passport surrender, no interference with witnesses — are standard. And it is true that the prosecution's stated reason for not opposing bail was procedural: they are still awaiting a forensic report and age verification documents.
But let us hold this up and look at it carefully. The allegations involve: a minor. A 14-year-old. An organised group of adult men. Death threats. Physical restraint. And a man who has both means and motive to flee — he has a passport (now surrendered), resources, a large public platform, and international connections.
Should he have been bailed at all? In our view, the state's decision not to oppose bail was a mistake. Section 117 of Zimbabwe's Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act provides for bail to be refused where the accused is likely to endanger the safety of the public or a particular person, or where there is a likelihood that the accused might attempt to influence or intimidate witnesses. The prosecution had at minimum an arguable case for opposing bail on these grounds, particularly given that four alleged accomplices remain at large and the victim is identifiable.
US$500 is not a meaningful deterrent for a man with Holy Ten's earning capacity. It is the cost of a studio session. It does not protect the victim. It does not protect potential witnesses. And it sends a message — whether intended or not — that in Zimbabwe, fame provides a cushion that ordinary accused persons do not receive.
We call on the prosecution to review this decision before the 7 August court date. We call on civil society and women's rights organisations to monitor this case closely. And we remind the public: Holy Ten is presumed innocent. But a 14-year-old girl deserves the full weight of the law standing between her and any further harm.
@ZimRightsLIVE@ZimWomenLawyers@GCCNigeria
🔴Etihad–Fastjet Alliance: Zimbabwe Opens to 70+ Global Destinations Via Abu Dhabi
▪️Etihad Airways and Fastjet Zimbabwe have finalised a strategic codeshare partnership connecting Harare, Bulawayo, and Victoria Falls to Etihad's Abu Dhabi hub — opening access to 70+ international destinations. Aviation analysts call it the most significant expansion of Zimbabwe's international air connectivity since the Zimbabwe Airways era.
Source: Zimbabwe Mail / AllAfrica, 8 Jul 2026
🔴The Tshuma Murders:
▪️Zimbabwean-Born IT Consultant Arrested in Johannesburg After Wife and Two Daughters Found Dead in Bedfordshire
Ndodana Mkhanyisi Tshuma, 45, also known as Mark Tshuma, a Zimbabwean-born British IT consultant, was arrested in Kensington, Johannesburg on Friday 10 July in a joint operation by the South African Police Service, Interpol, Bedfordshire Police, and the UK National Crime Agency.
The bodies of his wife, Nothabo Zandile Tshuma (n��e Khumalo), 42, and their two daughters — Natalie, 15, and Nala, just five years old — were found on Monday 6 July at the family's £1.3 million home in Great Denham, an affluent suburb near Bedford, Bedfordshire, after neighbours raised concerns that the family had not been seen for several days.
Police forced entry and made the discovery. CCTV footage captured Tshuma at London Heathrow Airport on Saturday 4 July — two days before the bodies were found. He boarded a flight to Dubai, then travelled to South Africa. South Africa's movement control system confirms he entered the country on 5 July. Investigators believe he briefly travelled to his native Zimbabwe before returning to South Africa, where police tracked him.
SAPS National Spokesperson Brigadier Athlenda Mathe confirmed: "Within a matter of hours, police were able to track him to Kensington in Johannesburg." She added: "Let this be a stern warning to criminals across the world that South Africa is not a hiding place for fugitives." Tshuma was found in possession of a firearm — police are investigating how he entered South Africa with it.
Interpol issued a Red Notice seeking Tshuma's arrest. South Africa has an extradition agreement with the United Kingdom. He is expected to appear in court on Monday and extradition proceedings are expected to begin immediately. Tshuma's mother, Patricia Tshuma, who lives on the outskirts of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, declined to speak to reporters, saying she would only speak to the relevant authorities. A family spokesperson told the Telegraph: "We are deeply saddened by this tragic loss of life — a young beautiful family that has needlessly lost their lives and future. We are all grappling to make sense of this tragedy."
The Khumalo family, speaking through Bedfordshire Police, said: "The Khumalo family is deeply saddened to confirm the passing of our beloved Zandile (Nothabo) Khumalo and her two children." The case has sent shockwaves through both the Zimbabwean diaspora in the UK and British communities in Bedfordshire, where flowers and condolence messages have been left outside the family home.
Tshuma has not entered a plea and is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Source: Nehanda Radio / BuzzLife News / The South African / eNCA / EWN / The Telegraph, 10 Jul 2026
🔴CAB3 — SIGNED INTO LAW
It Is Now Law: Mnangagwa Signs CAB3, Zimbabwe Votes Goodbye to Direct Presidential Elections
▪️CAB3 is now gazetted as Act No. 6 of 2026. The most far-reaching constitutional change since Zimbabwe's independence: the direct popular vote for president — introduced in 2013 after years of SADC-mediated negotiation — is abolished. Future presidents will be elected by a joint sitting of parliament in which ZANU-PF holds an overwhelming majority. Mnangagwa also gains the power to appoint 10 additional senators, moving the Senate from 80 to 90 members.
▪️Voter registration has been transferred from ZEC to the Registrar General, and public interviews for senior judicial appointments have been scrapped. Former finance minister of the Constitution Defenders Forum told RFI: 'This is a deliberate stripping away of popular sovereignty.'
Source: AllAfrica / RFI / 263Chat / NewsDay, 7-9 Jul 2026
🔴GRACE MUGABE
▪️'I Am Your Queen': Grace Mugabe's Hired Thugs Leave Trail of Blood at Mazowe Mining Dispute
Grace Mugabe has declared herself 'your queen' to residents and miners in Mazowe in a brazen land and mining dispute that has turned violent. Reports on AllAfrica detail a trail of injuries inflicted by hired militia operating on behalf of the former first lady as she consolidates her control over vast Mazowe landholdings.
▪️The incident exposes the unresolved land and mining governance issues that remain from the Mugabe era and the absence of rule-of-law enforcement against powerful connected individuals.
Source: AllAfrica, 9 Jul 2026
🔴ConCourt Dismisses CAB3 Challenges
▪️Zimbabwe's Constitutional Court has dismissed legal challenges to Constitutional Amendment Bill No. 3, clearing the way for presidential assent. The Bill, which extends presidential and parliamentary terms to seven years and removes direct popular election of the president, will make Mnangagwa's next election due in 2030.
▪️Analysts on Nehanda Radio warn that CAB3 has also ended VP Chiwenga's presidential ambitions — shifting Zimbabwe's succession war to new terrain.
Source: https://t.co/87Rna1bPSq / Nehanda Radio, 18 Jun & 29 Jun 2026
🔴DIASPORA CRISIS
Zimbabwe Repatriates thousands of Nationals from South Africa as Xenophobia Violence Fears Grow
▪️Zimbabwe had repatriated some of
its nationals from South Africa by 26 June as anti-immigrant violence threatened. The government has deployed officials at the Beitbridge border to assist returnees.
▪️With hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans living in South Africa, the crisis has reignited the diaspora debate — and raised urgent questions about whether Zimbabwe's domestic economy can absorb returning workers.
Source: https://t.co/87Rna1bPSq, 26 Jun 2026
🔴MINING REFORM
Zimbabwe Moves to Digitise All Mining Claims Under New National Cadastre System
▪️Zimbabwe's government is establishing a transparent digital register of all mining claims across the country — a major reform aimed at combating claim-jumping, reducing disputes, and attracting international investment.
▪️The cadastre system, to be linked to the Ministry of Mines database, is part of broader efforts to formalise the sector ahead of the January 2027 lithium concentrate export ban.
Source: https://t.co/87Rna1bPSq, 30 Jun 2026
🔴ECONOMY
Zimbabwe's GDP Surged to 7.5% in 2025 — But Recovery Remains Fragile, Warns World Bank
▪️Zimbabwe's economy grew 7.5% in 2025 — up from 1.7% in 2024 — driven by agricultural rebounds and higher global mining prices. Inflation fell to a historic single-digit low of 4.1% in January 2026. However, the World Bank cautions that the recovery is 'delicate' with fiscal risks remaining elevated, electricity shortages persisting, and the ZiG currency's long-term viability still dependent on public trust and fiscal discipline.
Source: World Bank Zimbabwe Country Brief, 2026
🔴LEGISLATION
Cabinet Greenlights Tobacco Industry Act Reform and Sugary Drinks Tax in Busy Legislative Week
▪️Zimbabwe's Cabinet approved two significant legislative packages this week: amendments to the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Act that will reshape how the country's largest agricultural export is marketed and priced, and a new tax on sugary drinks and fast food whose revenue will be ringfenced for non-communicable disease prevention programmes.
Source: https://t.co/87Rna1bPSq, 1 Jul 2026
🔴Three Stories, One Zimbabwe: A Nation at the Crossroads
Three stories dominate our inaugural edition — and together they paint a vivid, sometimes contradictory portrait of Zimbabwe and the continent at this precise moment in history. Each deserves honest, unflinching analysis.
▪️ON THE CONSTITUTION: Zimbabwe's Senate has passed Constitutional Amendment Bill No. 3 by 75 votes to 4 — and the debate it has ignited goes to the very heart of democratic governance. Critics are right to raise the alarm about one specific provision: the replacement of direct popular election of the president with a parliamentary vote. This is not merely a procedural adjustment; it removes the most direct line between citizen and government. When the people can no longer choose their president at the ballot box, accountability is filtered through a parliamentary majority — and
Zimbabwe's current arithmetic means that majority belongs overwhelmingly to one party. And yet, the critics must also engage honestly with the broader argument: constitutions are not sacred, immovable documents. They are living instruments, designed to be amended as nations evolve.
Across Africa, constitutional revision is commonplace. Rwanda has revised its constitution to permit longer presidential terms. Uganda extended its president's tenure. Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, and Cameroon have all made significant alterations in recent decades. The question, therefore, is not whether constitutions should change — they must — but whether changes serve the long-term interests of a nation's people or the short-term interests of those already in power.
The critical distinction, which every Zimbabwean should demand clarity on, is this: applying term extensions to future office-holders is reform; applying them to the sitting president mid-term is a different matter entirely. Africa's democratic journey has been repeatedly derailed by the conflation of these two things. A national conversation — ideally a referendum — would lend the changes legitimacy they currently lack.
▪️ON AFRICA'S FOOTBALL MOMENT: Nine of ten African nations at the 2026 World Cup have reached the knockout round. Let that land. For a continent that has never had more than five teams advance in a single tournament, this is not an incremental improvement — it is a rupture with history.
South Africa's Bafana Bafana, DRC, Cape Verde all qualified. This is not luck. This is the product of sustained investment in continental football infrastructure, and a generation of African players who compete weekly in the world's best leagues. Africa's teams are showing tactical discipline, physical quality, and genuine belief. The days of African teams being tournament makeweights are over.
The question now is whether any of these nine nations can go all the way. We at UNewZimbabwe believe the answer is: watch this space.
▪️ON ZIMBABWE'S TOURISM BOOM: The numbers speak for themselves — a 438% surge in tourism investment in a single quarter, US$251 million in receipts, and 384,561 international arrivals. Forbes named Zimbabwe a top destination for 2025. ITB Berlin awarded both Destination of the Year and Tourism Minister of the Year to Zimbabwe. The world is paying attention. This matters enormously. Tourism is Zimbabwe's most accessible foreign currency earner, its greatest soft-power instrument, and one of its most inclusive economic drivers — creating jobs from Victoria Falls to the Eastern Highlands
The ZTA's projection of US$1.36 billion in full-year receipts is ambitious but credible given current momentum. The caution, however, must be sounded: geopolitical turbulence — particularly in the Middle East — already dented March arrivals by 12%. Zimbabwe's tourism recovery rests on global stability it cannot control.
Three stories. One nation at the crossroads. UNewZimbabwe will report all of it — without bias, without fear, and without the shallow narratives our readers rightly reject
🔴Victoria Falls under threat
▪️The country's premier tourist destination faces multiple ecological threats, including water scarcity from climate change, pollution from urban expansion, unchecked tourism development, and invasive plant species.
🟢Larry Norton, a renowned Zimbabwean wildlife and landscape artist known for his oil paintings that depict the nature and wildlife of Africa, complaining about the gradual destruction of the world-famous Victoria Falls in Matabeleland North province through reckless human interference, particularly parcelling out land along the Zambezi River to well-connected people mainly linked to government and Zanu PF.
People from different parts of the country, mainly Harare, are scrambling and grabbing land in Victoria Falls at the expense of locals and other stakeholders, while destroying the country's premier tourist destination.
Victoria Falls faces multiple ecological threats, including water scarcity from climate change, pollution from urban expansion, unchecked tourism development, and invasive plant species.
However, land grabs through corrupt means and unchecked developments are now the biggest threat to Victoria Falls, a Unesco world heritage site.
The Zambezi River ecosystem, a critical lifeline of the falls, is particularly vulnerable to these pressures.
Born in Harare in 1963, Norton grew up on a game farm in Zimbabwe, which deeply influenced his artistic focus. He began his professional career in 1988 and has since gained international recognition.
🔴Air India confirms London bound flight AI171 crash after take-off.
▫️The 787-8 aircraft was carrying 242 passengers and crew. 169 are Indian nationals, 53 are British , 1 Canadian and 7 Portuguese nationals.
The injured are being taken to the nearest hospitals.
Air India confirms that flight AI171, from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick, was involved in an accident today after take-off.
The flight, which departed from Ahmedabad at 1338 hrs, was carrying 242 passengers and crew members on board the Boeing 787-8 aircraft. Of these, 169 are Indian nationals, 53 are British nationals, 1 Canadian national and 7 Portuguese nationals.
The injured are being taken to the nearest hospitals.
We have also set up a dedicated passenger hotline number 1800 5691 444 to provide more information.
Air India is giving its full cooperation to the authorities investigating this incident.
Air India will release further information via regular updates on its X handle (https://t.co/E5GNmjUHdL) and on https://t.co/j0KFr3rQU2.
Note to Editors: Air India requests media persons not to call the dedicated passenger hotline number.
🔴Ruto and Xi sign agreements to increase cooperation between China and Kenya
▪️They agree that China-Africa solidarity helps global stability
▪️they will uphold WTO values against new hegemonic tactics such as tariffs, sanctions
#ruto#XiJinping
Kenya has been a key BRI recipient, and Nairobi has taken a raft of loans from China to finance infrastructure construction projects that have made China the East African nation's biggest bilateral lender.
https://t.co/aLgSZgH8bd
#MonitorUpdates
🔴Nobody outside Africa is coming to save you," Former President Uhuru Kenyatta urges Millennials and Gen Zs to rise up.
▪️the median age for Africans is 19years while that of Europe is over 30.
🔴Makurumure falls along Ruzawi River is a hidden gem and unique tourist site
▪️Makurumure falls in Hwedza roars and thunders leaving a nostalgic foggy mist in the immediate distance
@africatourisma@ZtaUpdates
🔴The House of Lords condemns continued incarceration of Zimbabwe journalist Blessed Mhlanga
▪️First Lady Auxilia Mnangagwa to be asked to account for this abuse in upcoming UK visit in June
▪️calls for isolation of Zimbabwe and other countries that repress media freedoms
🔴 Kirsty Coventry elected 10th president of IOC
▪️She makes history as delivers her acceptance speech after being elected as the first African and first female President in IOC history.
Kirsty Coventry delivers her acceptance speech after being elected as the 10th President of the International Olympic Committee, and the first female President in IOC history.