Zimbabwe has developed a peculiar reflex: when a problem arises, the default solution is not policy, infrastructure, or long-term planning—it is a car.
A pothole swallows a kombi? The councilor gets a vehicle. A clinic runs out of bandages? Keys are handed over. A national celebration? Cars appear. It is as if Marie Antoinette’s infamous “let them eat cake” has been updated: “If there is a problem, give them a car.” The absurdity is striking, but the implications run far deeper. Beneath the gleam of chrome and the flash of cameras lies a governance pattern quietly reshaping expectations, priorities, and even the national psyche.
The quiet work that gets lost
Zimbabwe is not devoid of competent policymakers, engineers, and planners. Civil servants rehabilitate roads, repair clinics, and draft evidence-based reforms. Local councils pilot innovative solutions. These acts of genuine development happen daily, but they rarely make headlines. They are slow, technical, and largely invisible.
Meanwhile, performative generosity dominates public attention. A ribbon-cutting ceremony for a partial project attracts convoys, speeches, banners, and media coverage. Citizens cheer the spectacle, while the substantive work that underpins real development goes unnoticed. In a nation conditioned to equate visibility with effectiveness, the optics of action increasingly outweigh the impact of action.
The lottery mentality
A deeper, more insidious effect emerges: the slow cultivation of a national expectation of handouts. Communities begin to wait like participants in a lottery, hoping to be chosen for a vehicle, a donation, or a ceremonial gift. Development becomes something received, not demanded; progress becomes episodic and unpredictable, dependent on the whims of a few rather than the strength of institutions.
This lottery mentality diminishes agency. Citizens stop pressing for systems, accountability, and policies. Instead, they cultivate patience for the next handover, the next convoy, the next photo opportunity. Governance becomes a stage, and citizens become spectators.
The policy and development cost
Each car donation displaces work that could have addressed root causes. Structural investments—improved procurement systems, sustainable infrastructure, well-resourced clinics, functional schools, reliable energy—take a back seat to one-off, symbolic gestures.
Performative generosity is politically rewarding because it is immediate and visible. Real governance, by contrast, is slow, technical, and often invisible. This imbalance warps incentives: politicians invest in the spectacle, not the system; citizens celebrate the gesture, not the outcome.
The End Game
Left unchecked, this culture risks creating a cycle of managed stagnation: Leaders derive legitimacy from handouts, not institutional competence; Citizens internalise dependence and expectations of gifts over rights; Development becomes episodic, unpredictable, and personality-driven; Policy loses its authority as the instrument of governance.
The country’s future depends on the steady, invisible work of systems, institutions, and policies, not the parade of vehicles. Zimbabwe has the talent, ideas, and capacity to build sustainably. What is missing is the collective will to prioritise the durable over the dazzling.
Reclaiming substance over spectacle
The solution is straightforward, if challenging: elevate actual achievements as loudly as ceremonial gestures. Celebrate policymakers, engineers, nurses, and teachers whose work keeps systems functioning. Reward institutional competence, not fleeting optics. Rebuild civic culture around participation, agency, and accountability, not dependency on the next handover.
Cars may provide temporary visibility. But development requires persistence, planning, and discipline. The nation cannot afford to confuse motion with progress or spectacle with governance. If Zimbabwe is to move beyond the lottery of performative handouts, it must learn to value the slow, quiet, and enduring work that actually builds a future.
The road to progress is not a parade. It is infrastructure, institutions, and citizens empowered to demand more. Cars alone cannot carry a nation forward.
Simbarashe Namusi is a peace, leadership and governance scholar as well as media expert. He writes in his personal capacity. This was first published here by the NewsWire.
