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Auxillia Fails to Attend FLAIR

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Written by: Lloyd Shumbayaonda ZHRO,CCC Vice Treasurer, Manchester Branch

Published: 20 June 2025

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• Auxilla Go Home

Auxillia Mnangagwa Fails to Attend FLAIR Summit in London Amidst Controversy

The First Ladies of African Impact & Resilience (FLAIR) Summit, scheduled for June 17-18, 2025, at the Leonardo Royal Hotel in London, was expected to host Auxillia Mnangagwa, the First Lady of Zimbabwe. However, it appears she did not attend the summit amidst widespread criticism from Zimbabweans in the UK and concerns over human rights abuses.

Background to the Controversy

The FLAIR Summit aims to promote women's empowerment, impact, and resilience. However, Auxillia Mnangagwa's potential attendance sparked outrage due to her association with Zimbabwe's repressive Zanu PF regime and documented human rights abuses. Zimbabweans in the UK petitioned the UK Prime Minister and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to deny Auxillia a visa, citing her role in a regime that contributes to the suffering of Zimbabwean women ¹.

Reasons Behind the Outcry- Human Rights Abuses:

Zimbabwe's maternal mortality rate increased to 114 per 100,000 live births in 2023, reflecting the dire state of healthcare under Zanu PF governance.

- Lack of Transparency:

The circumstances surrounding Auxillia's invitation as "patron elect" raised questions about potential funding influence and motives behind her participation.

- Contradiction to FLAIR Summit's Ethos:

Read more: Auxillia Fails to Attend FLAIR

Breaking the Momentum

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Written by: The Commentator - FB

Published: 11 May 2025

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• The Commentator
• Stop the Looting
• Expose Corruption

Even If We Can’t Change the Government—We Must Break the Momentum of Looting.

The idea of political change in Zimbabwe feels like chasing a mirage. We’ve watched stolen elections, dead-end reforms, and opposition parties muzzled into irrelevance. But while change at the top may seem frozen, the bleeding hasn’t stopped. In fact, it’s speeding up.

Every day ZANU-PF stays in power is another day of looting dressed up as "development." Gold smuggled. Diamond proceeds vanished. Multi-million-dollar tenders handed to shell companies run by cousins and cronies. State land parceled out like sweets at a party. It’s not politics anymore—it’s organized theft wearing a liberation war medal.

But here’s the kicker: even if we can’t unseat the looters right now, we can still slow them down. We can break their momentum.

How?

1. Expose the Networks.
Corruption thrives in darkness. We need to drag dirty deals into the sunlight—name the companies, trace the shell accounts, connect the dots between minister and money. Digital whistleblowing, open-source sleuthing, and people who aren’t afraid to speak can gum up the gears.
2. Target the Enablers.
Every looter has a banker. A lawyer. A quiet civil servant who signs the papers. A businessman who plays middleman for stolen resources. If we can’t touch the powerful directly, we can disrupt their supply chains—call out collaborators, boycott their businesses, make silence a liability.
3. Empower Local Voices.
When people understand how the looting affects them—why clinics have no painkillers, why roads are pothole galleries, why their savings turn to dust—they stop being passive. We need to translate the billions stolen into the bread and blood ordinary people lose.
4. Use Digital Firepower.
Forget waiting for a newspaper headline. Social media is the new frontline. If 10,000 people share one dirty tender. If a viral video names one corrupt deal. If an exposé forces one apology. That’s momentum broken. Even for a day, it counts.
5. Preserve the Evidence.
One day, this will end. And when it does, justice will depend on what we remembered. Keep receipts. Archive stories. Record testimony. The day of reckoning needs a paper trail.

ZANU-PF's looting isn't just a result of power—it is the reason they cling to power. They’re not afraid of elections. They’re afraid of accountability.

We may not hold the keys to State House yet. But if we let the looting continue unchallenged, we’ll have nothing left to rebuild with when change finally comes.
So let’s fight. Let’s document. Let’s disrupt. Let’s break their rhythm.
Because while we wait for change at the top, we can still stop the rot below.
#TheCommentator #Zimbabwe #StopTheLooting #ExposeCorruption

Bad governance, not drought

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Written by: Tendai Ruben Mbofana

Published: 24 February 2024

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Bad governance, not drought, causing hunger in Zimbabwe!

It can not be denied that the 2023/24 agricultural season is one of the worst in Zimbabwe. This is largely due to the frighteningly low rainfall experienced as a direct result of the El Niño weather pattern that has affected most parts of the southern African region. It is a painful sight watching the miserable dry shriveled crops in most fields throughout the country.As a result, according to the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization), an estimated 3.5 million Zimbabweans, mostly in rural areas, are facing acute food insecurity this year.

The government of Zimbabwe is already in panic mode, seeking food assistance from several partners to help circumvent any potential disaster. Already, countries such as Russia, the US, China, and UN agents are in the process of sending food aid, mainly in the form of grains and cereals.

However, we need to be brutally honest with one another.

• What is the real reason millions of ordinary Zimbabweans are facing starvation?
• Can we genuinely blame the El Niño induced drought
• – or is the cause somewhere else totally divorced from the weather or climatic change?

For this, we need to look at a few case studies.

How are countries located in deserts faring when it comes to food security.

Let us remember that most places in the Middle East, for instance, receive far much less rain than we do here in Zimbabwe.

• In fact, the UAE (United Arab Emirates) gets an average 140 – 200 mm of rainfall per annum.
• Qatar receives less than 100 mm each year, and Saudi Arabia has less than 150 mm.
• On the other hand, in a normal season, Zimbabwe gets between 550 – 900 mm each year.

Yet, despite the fact that the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia perennially receive such little rainfall, their populations are never under any danger of hunger.

Actually, the UAE is ranked first in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region and 23rd in the world in its food security [based on the GFSI (Global Food Security Index)]. Qatar is number one in the entire Arab world and 24th in the world.

What about Zimbabwe?

In most seasons – not just this year when there is a drought – we are ranked somewhere near the bottom.

• In other words, it really does not matter whether we have a good rainfall season or not, Zimbabweans are always in danger of hunger.
• During the 2022/23 season, more than 3.8 million people in rural areas faced food insecurity at peak.
• Remember, the 2022/23 rainfall season was arguably one of the best this country has witnessed in years – with the Zimbabwe government even boasting of bumper harvests, particularly of wheat.

Why, then, are we seemingly always facing starvation?

Yet, those in deserts are considered some the most food secure in the world?

This all boils down to the quality of leaders in power.

These countries, as the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, are governed relatively well, as their leaders ensure that their national resources are utilized to uplift the citizens’ standard of living. They really do not have much in terms of these resources, largely depending on petroleum and natural gas. Nevertheless, these are managed faithfully and for the good of the entire population. In so doing, the government (together with the private sector) import more than enough food for everyone – which every citizen is able to easily afford due to their high standard of living.

In Zimbabwe, nonetheless, in spite of massive deposits of platinum, lithium, diamonds, gold, black granite, chrome, nickel, and many others – we are some of the poorest people on the planet.

In the same breath, we have the highest inflation in the world – making basic commodities overly expensive for millions. We have some of the best farming land in the world, yet millions of Zimbabweans still rely on rain-fed agriculture, making them vulnerable to the vagaries of the weather.

The ZANU PF administration has practically done nothing in ensuring that our rural folk have productive land that is adequately serviced, particularly with reliable water supply.

• Where are our vast mineral resources going?
• Who are they benefitting?
• Each year, Zimbabwe loses over US$3 billion to smuggling, illicit financial transactions, and other corrupt activities.
• In all this, very few, especially in the ruling elite (and those connected to them), are ever brought to book.
• They can live in insulting opulence whilst flaunting this ill-gotten wealth in front of poverty-stricken Zimbabweans.
• That is why doling out highly expensive luxury cars to friends is never a problem for them!

Is it then surprising that Zimbabwe is ranked the 149th least corrupt nation out of 180 countries, according to the 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index reported by Transparency International? Those are shameful statistics, for which our leaders should be very embarrassed… if they had any conscience at all. On the other hand, the UAE is ranked 26th in the world – with Qatar at 40th and Saudi Arabia at 53rd.

As much as these figures are far from impressive, however, they should tell us why, even with very limited resources, they are more developed than Zimbabwe. That is the reason, despite being in a desert, their citizens are never food insecure. In other words, whether a nation has plenty to eat or is on the verge of starvation has very little to do with rainfall patterns.

It has, nevertheless, a lot to do with the quality of leaders in the particular country. Zimbabweans are staring starvation in the face because of a corrupt and incompetent regime.

El Niño or not, we will still be hungry.