Imagine paying for a bag of mealie-meal, getting a receipt, and then being told to come back next week for it. When you return, there’s still nothing. Weeks turn into months, and months turn into years. Your money is gone, and your family is still hungry. This is the exact situation Zimbabwe’s state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have put the country in, but on a scale that is hard to comprehend. Millions of your hard-earned dollars have been paid for essential goods and services that have simply vanished into thin air, never to be seen again.
The Auditor-General’s 2024 report, a document that should be a simple check-up on public finances, reads more like a horror story. It exposes a shocking pattern of mismanagement where huge sums of money are paid upfront to suppliers for vehicles, equipment, and services that are never delivered. The report’s “Undelivered Goods” annexure is a devastating list of these phantom purchases, detailing a trail of financial bleeding that directly impacts every single citizen.
“Perhaps most striking was the revelation that millions of dollars were spent on critical goods… which were never delivered,” the report states.
In plain terms, taxpayers have funded trucks and laptops that do not exist. As of May 2025 the audit found that “40 vehicles, 17 fire trucks, 83 desktops, and 75 laptops” paid for between 2021 and 2024 were still missing.
A government audit report highlights alarming procurement failures: dozens of vehicles, fire engines and computers paid for by ministries never arrived. Citizens fear services will suffer while money is wasted on ghost purchases. This lapse in procurement is not new. The AG notes that some goods have been undelivered since 2021: “Some MDAs had undelivered goods dating back to 2021,” she reports. For example, the Ministry of Local Government ordered 17 new fire trucks (over US$8.3 million) that still haven’t arrived.
Even school desks and office chairs have been left hanging. Such missing shipments leave frontline services scrambling – fire brigades without trucks, clinics waiting on ambulances, and offices without computers. The root cause, Kujinga finds, is weak oversight. She bluntly notes that “contract monitoring was not effectively done”.
In practice, this means vendors breaking agreements face no punishment. Suppliers have missed deadlines, failed to deliver the promised number of vehicles, or even sent different models – yet none were held to account.The auditor-general warns there were virtually no penalties for this non-performance. As she wrote, officials “did not invoke” the contract clauses against defaulting suppliers. This legal loophole has been hugely costly. Kujinga cautions that ignoring delivery schedules invites price gouging – “there is risk of excessive contract price variations if payments and deliveries are not made within the agreed contract period”.
In other words, the longer equipment takes to arrive, the more the government may end up paying for it. These procurement failures have real victims. By mids 2025, entire districts remained short of paid-for vehicles. In a public briefing, the AG spelled out the impact: “Service delivery was also compromised as the assets are tools of trade required for the well-functioning of MDAs,” she stated. In plain language, hospitals may not get their ambulances, and rural departments may have to cobble together transport. The Business Times reports that failure to enforce contracts “not only risks financial losses but also cripples service delivery”. Citizens are left wondering why their tax money has bought nothing – a scandal that has reignited public outrage. Opposition MPs and social commentators warn of “ghost assets” draining the Treasury with no benefit to anyone.
In its conclusion, the audit does not mince words. It calls for tougher contract enforcement and better tracking of suppliers. Kujinga urges that ministries must follow up on late deliveries and apply penalties when contracts are breached. Experts suggest creating a centralized database of suppliers, so all government departments can see which vendors have a record of non-delivery. Such measures would prevent “phantom” orders for trucks and equipment from slipping through the cracks. The report stresses that without “concerted efforts” to plug these oversight gaps, public services and trust will continue to suffer. In short, taxpayers will keep footing the bill for non-existent vehicles and gear until the system is fixed.
The examples are as infuriating as they are numerous. The Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC), the entity responsible for keeping our lights on, made advance payments of USD 1.4 million for critical equipment, including transformers and crane parts. Some of these payments were made as far back as 2014. A decade later, the goods have still not been delivered. Every time the power cuts, remember that money meant to fix the problem was paid but the equipment never arrived.
It doesn’t stop there. The Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA), the taxman that diligently collects money from our paychecks, is itself waiting on a fleet of 62 vehicles it paid for but never received. The CMED (Private) Limited, which is meant to manage government vehicles, paid for 23 vehicles from two different suppliers. The AG report states that “the vehicles were not delivered as at year end.” One of the suppliers was supposed to deliver eight vehicles by December 2023, while another was contracted to deliver fifteen vehicles within six weeks. Neither contract was fulfilled.
Even our universities are not spared. Chinhoyi University of Technology paid for two generators in February 2023. As the AG dryly notes, there was “no delivery was made as at December 31, 2023.”
How does this happen? The report points to a catastrophic failure in basic business practices. There is a clear lack of due diligence on suppliers, meaning our SOEs are handing over millions to companies without properly checking if they can even deliver. Contracts are signed without enforcement clauses, leaving the public with no recourse when things go wrong.
The consequences of this mess are felt in our daily lives. The Rural Electrification Fund (REF), tasked with bringing power to the most remote parts of our country, is crippled by an “aged fleet” of vehicles that constantly break down. The report states that the Fund’s inability to replace these vehicles, due to “funding constraints and shortage of foreign currency,” compromises its ability to carry out its projects. Yet, the money for new vehicles is often paid to suppliers who simply disappear.
Perhaps the most absurd case is that of the Scientific Industrial Research and Development Centre (SIRDC). The centre ordered and paid for a specialised carbon dioxide incubator valued at USD 63,755. What they received instead was a cheaper, incorrect model. By the time they realised the mistake and tried to get it replaced, the warranty had expired due to delays in installation. The supplier refused to replace it, leaving the research centre with the wrong equipment and a huge financial loss.
This is not just about mismanagement; it is a betrayal of public trust. The money being lost is not abstract; it is the money for medicines in our hospitals, books in our schools, and electricity in our homes. The pattern of paying for goods that never arrive reveals a system of procurement and oversight that is fundamentally broken.
Until there are serious consequences for this level of incompetence—including legal action against defaulting suppliers and holding the officials who signed these deals accountable—the nation’s coffers will continue to be drained by these ghost purchases, and the Zimbabwean people will be the ones left paying the price.
