What is the point of Mutapa Investment Fund’s financial results if the real owners cannot see them?

This is the million-dollar question.

When the Mutapa Investment Fund recently announced that it had finally released audited financial results, the declaration was presented as a milestone for transparency and accountability.

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Yet, upon closer scrutiny, the announcement raises a far more troubling question: what is the value of financial results that are not meaningfully accessible to the real shareholders—the people of Zimbabwe?

A financial report that cannot be independently interrogated by the public, debated in Parliament, or subjected to open scrutiny is little more than a public relations exercise.

It may tick a procedural box for those in power, but it fails the most fundamental test of accountability in a democratic state: answering to the citizens in whose name and on whose behalf public assets are held.

This anomaly becomes even more glaring when one considers what the Mutapa Investment Fund actually is.

It is not a private holding company.

It is not a personal family trust.

It is not a commercial venture funded by the President’s private resources.

It is a vehicle that consolidates and manages some of Zimbabwe’s most strategic public assets—state-owned enterprises and investments that were built using public resources and are meant to serve public interests.

Under Zimbabwean law, state-owned enterprises are owned by the State, and crucially, the State itself derives its authority from the people.

Section 2 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe is unequivocal that the Constitution is supreme, and Section 3 establishes that Zimbabwe is founded on principles of good governance, transparency, accountability, and responsiveness.

Even more importantly, Section 9 obliges the State to adopt policies and legislation that ensure transparency and accountability in the use of public resources.

These are not decorative clauses.

They are binding constitutional imperatives.

The State, therefore, is not the ultimate owner of public assets—it is merely the custodian.

The true owners are the citizens of Zimbabwe.

The government of the day, elected by the people, is nothing more than a proxy, entrusted with managing national resources on behalf of the population.

A herdboy may watch over a family’s cattle, but that does not mean he owns them or has the right to slaughter or sell them.

This is the foundational principle of republican governance.

Power and property do not belong to office-holders personally; they belong to the public collectively.

This is precisely why, in normal democratic systems, sovereign wealth funds and state investment vehicles are placed under parliamentary oversight.

Parliament exists not as a nuisance to the executive, but as the institutional embodiment of popular sovereignty.

Members of Parliament are elected representatives of the people, mandated to scrutinise how public wealth is managed, to debate financial reports, and to demand answers where questions arise.

Parliamentary oversight is not optional—it is essential.

It is therefore deeply problematic that the Mutapa Investment Fund was deliberately removed from parliamentary scrutiny and from the Ministry of Finance, and placed directly under the Office of the President through statutory instruments.

Even more alarming is the fact that the Fund was exempted from key public procurement laws.

In one administrative sweep, assets worth billions of dollars were effectively shielded from the very mechanisms designed to protect them from abuse.

In that context, the announcement of “audited financial results” that are not fully published, not laid before Parliament, and not easily accessible to citizens begins to look less like transparency and more like controlled disclosure.

Selected figures are revealed, but the full picture—detailed balance sheets, income statements, cash flows, executive remuneration, asset acquisition costs, and liabilities—remains out of reach.

That is not accountability.

That is information management.

The issue is compounded by the curious symbolism surrounding the Fund itself.

It was originally established as the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Zimbabwe—a name that clearly reflected its public character and national ownership.

Its rebranding to the “Mutapa Investment Fund” invites uncomfortable questions, particularly in a political environment where the President is increasingly mythologised by loyalists as “Munhumutapa,” complete with a commemorative “Munhumutapa Day” marking his birthday.

Symbolism matters in politics, because it often reveals underlying attitudes.

Are we now being asked to believe, even subconsciously, that this Fund is a personal fiefdom?

That assets belonging to the people of Zimbabwe are extensions of presidential authority rather than national property?

If the Fund is not accountable to Parliament, not answerable to the Ministry of Finance, and effectively reports only to the President, then to whom does it truly belong?

If, by implication or practice, the companies under the Mutapa Investment Fund are now treated as the President’s assets, then the logical next question must be asked without fear or apology: how were these assets acquired, and at what price?

If they are personal, then they must be subject to the same standards of private ownership—proof of purchase, valuation, and lawful transfer.

If they are public, then they must be subject to public scrutiny.

There is no democratic middle ground.

This confusion between stewardship and ownership is not new in Zimbabwe.

It is, in fact, the original sin that has destroyed our parastatals since independence.

Those placed “in charge” of national assets gradually convinced themselves that being custodians made them owners.

Once that mental shift occurred, looting became rationalised as entitlement.

Ziscosteel did not collapse by accident; it was pillaged.

The National Railways of Zimbabwe did not fall to its knees because railways are obsolete; it was systematically looted by political elites.

TelOne, ZBC, ZESA, and countless other public institutions have been milked dry under the same flawed belief—that proximity to power confers ownership.

Yet the truth remains stubborn and unchanging: agricultural land, minerals, parastatals, and sovereign funds do not belong to politicians.

They belong to the people of Zimbabwe.

Those in office are temporary managers, not inheritors.

They do not rule by divine right, nor do they acquire national assets through political loyalty.

That is why financial transparency is not a favour to citizens—it is a duty.

Publishing partial information while withholding substantive details undermines public trust and reinforces the perception that the State has been captured by personal interests.

If the Mutapa Investment Fund truly exists for the benefit of Zimbabweans, then its books must be open to Zimbabweans, through Parliament and through full public disclosure.

Otherwise, we are left with an uncomfortable but unavoidable conclusion: that what is being presented as national wealth is being treated as private property.

And history has already shown us where that path leads—economic ruin, institutional collapse, and a nation perpetually robbed by those entrusted to protect it.