Quick facts first. The Zimbabwean government has just given exclusive river rehabilitation rights to Prevail Group of Companies. That outfit is owned by Tempter Paul Tungwarara, an investment advisor to President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
Apparently, it never occurred to the president that he already has a whole swarm of entities that give him official advice on investment. The Ministry of Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion. Industry and Commerce. Foreign Affairs and International Trade. The Office of the President and Cabinet. Add to that the Zimbabwe Investment and Development Agency and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, inter alia.
The exclusive water rights were never subjected to competition. Parliament is in the dark. Other bidders just woke up to a cabinet announcement of the monopoly.
Prevail Group has been given the exclusive rights as a “prototype” project to rehabilitate a vague river called Muroodzi in Mazowe, purportedly awaiting national guidelines by the Environment ministry, as if things could not wait till then,
Kindly note: these exclusive rights are not only for this rivulet called Muroodzi; they apply everywhere. That’s clumsy right from the start, because how do you then say the monopoly is national, but applies only to this small river? Fishy stuff, but more on this later.
More of the quick facts. Tungwarara, whose entity was registered only last year, already has a string of contracts awarded without competitive or transparent tendering. Borehole drilling under the Presidential Borehole Scheme alongside—you guessed right—Scott Sakupwanya’s Better Brands. Hospital refurbishments. Housing projects for war vets. Solar power rollouts.
Pity Tungwara couldn’t jump into the Zanu PF central committee gravy train as fast as he has been getting these contracts.
Have a look, this talk is not exactly about Tungwarara. At stake here are fundamental principles of environmental governance, transparency and the rule of law that resonate across Southern Africa and other resource-rich regions grappling with extractive pressures.
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Government would like us to believe, quite naively, that the Tungwarara project is a corrective measure against years of degradation caused by artisanal and small-scale gold mining.
Yet the manner in which the project has been structured and awarded reflects a deeper and recurring governance deficit in Zimbabwe: the substitution of transparent and law‑based processes with politically mediated discretion.
This must not be a mouthful. Most people know Tungwarara better in the realm of politics than as an entrepreneur. He hogged the limelight last year through his “philanthropy”—a euphemism for cash-for-political-connectivity--to ruling Zanu PF loyalists, if not pretenders.
We don’t know how the president exactly selected him to be a parallel presidential advisor on investment or the lawfulness, prudence and sustainability of it. What we know with certainty is only that he did.
At the centre of this controversy lies the question of procurement and licensing transparency. Zimbabwe’s Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Act (Chapter 22:23) requires that public contracts be awarded through competitive and transparent processes that ensure value for money and fairness.
To date, there is no publicly accessible evidence that the Mazowe rehabilitation mandate was subjected to an open tender, nor clarity on whether it constitutes a concession, licence, or delegated public function. This opacity undermines public accountability and raises questions about compliance with procurement law.
From an environmental law perspective, the project intersects with several binding statutory frameworks. The Environmental Management Act (Chapter 20:27) mandates that any activity likely to significantly affect the environment must undergo an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), including public consultation and disclosure of findings.
River diversion, desiltation and sediment movement—particularly in a gold‑bearing river system—clearly fall within activities requiring strict environmental scrutiny. The absence of publicly disclosed EIAs or rehabilitation plans is, therefore, not a procedural oversight but a substantive governance failure.
Equally relevant is the Water Act (Chapter 20:24), which vests the management and protection of water resources in the state for the benefit of present and future generations. River systems are not merely physical assets but public trusts.
Granting exclusive control over river rehabilitation to a private, politically aligned entity risks eroding this public trust doctrine and weakens institutional safeguards designed to protect water security.
The deal also sits uneasily alongside Zimbabwe’s own policy direction on alluvial mining. In 2024, government introduced Statutory Instrument 188, banning alluvial mining in riverbeds due to its destructive environmental impact, including siltation, chemical pollution and ecosystem collapse.
This ban acknowledged that riverbed disturbance in gold‑rich areas is inherently high‑risk. Any rehabilitation model that involves sediment movement in such zones therefore invites scrutiny over whether restoration could become a proxy for self-interested extraction.
This concern is not imaginary. We have had issues in some areas whereby people went in under the guise of desiltation when the real motive was self-enrichment through illegal extraction.
Consider the MaDollar Dam case. Chief Gwesela of Zhombe in the Midlands province led a shadowy company, Hard Rock, that somehow obtained a licence from the Zibagwe Rural District Council to desilt the dam situated on a private farmer’s land.
Next thing, the company deployed gold mining equipment right within the dam and started doing bad things there. This is a fact and I know it because I was involved in an investigation around the matter.
Muroodzi River is in a gold-rich area in Mazowe. As already seen, illegal gold mining can be used to simulate regulated rehabilitation. If that is the case, then Muroodzi River rehabilitation can be manipulated for illegal gold mining by Tungwarara’s company.
And there is also a possibility that the process can be repeated on other rivers in Mazowe district and beyond, considering that Prevail Group now enjoys a river rehabilitation monopoly, courtesy of elite capture of the law.
Prevail Group’s corporate track record further complicates the narrative. While the company has been central to several high‑profile “presidential” initiatives, these projects have attracted parliamentary criticism and civil society scrutiny over quality, sustainability and cost effectiveness. Such concerns underscore the danger of conflating political proximity with technical competence, especially in complex environmental interventions.
The Mazowe deal also exposes structural weaknesses in institutional independence. Agencies such as the Environmental Management Agency (EMA), ZIinwa and local authorities are mandated to act as neutral regulators.
However, when projects are politically endorsed at the highest level, regulators risk becoming implementers rather than enforcers. This phenomenon, widely described as institutional capture, is not unique to Zimbabwe, but its consequences are particularly severe in fragile environmental contexts.
Polluters must pay the price for defiling the environment, and that principle is written into Zimbabwean environmental policy, if not the law. Why, then, are the offenders not being held accountable and the burden being transferred to taxpayer through an opaque and politically connected intermediary like Prevail? This approach diffuses liability, weakens deterrence and risks rewarding environmental harm with new economic opportunities.
It’s not our problem that law enforcement agencies are not doing enough to rid the rivers of illegal panners. And all relevant regulatory authorities must reign in offending small-scale miners who include Chinese companies.
Across Southern Africa and even beyond, governments face pressure to balance environmental restoration, political stability and elite interests. When environmental projects are weaponised for patronage, they undermine climate resilience, water security and public confidence.
Sustainable rehabilitation demands transparency, independent oversight and community participation, not exclusivity and political patronage.
If Zimbabwe is serious about environmental restoration and regional commitments to sustainable development, projects such as the Prevail one must be recalibrated. The full legal basis of the arrangement should be disclosed, EIAs made public and parliament empowered to exercise oversight.
Ultimately, river rehabilitation cannot succeed where the rule of law is selectively applied. The Mazowe River does not need political intermediaries; it needs accountable institutions, enforceable laws and governance systems that place ecological integrity above patronage.
