HARARE – As the final round of President Mnangagwa’s so-called Presidential Constituency Empowerment Fund (PCEF) rolls out in Mutare this Sunday, the ruling party’s veneer of unity is showing cracks. Presidential advisor Paul Tungwarara, tasked with overseeing allocations to the remaining constituencies of Dangamvura, Chikanga, and Mutare Central, has been at the centre of growing factional tensions within ZANU-PF’s provincial ranks.
While the fund — US$25,000 per constituency — is being presented as a grassroots empowerment initiative, observers note that the programme has become a stage for internal power plays. Reports indicate escalating rivalry between the Tungwarara and Tagwire camps, with disputes over lucrative local tenders and control of gold mining concessions exacerbating tensions. Sources within Mutare suggest that these internal battles have spilled into public events, with officials jockeying for influence and visibility during fund disbursements.
Despite criticism, Tungwarara has remained defiant. His team continues to frame the fund as a transformative initiative, highlighting allocations to schools, clinics, and support for liberation war veterans. Starlink internet kits for schools and funding for local clinics are touted as revolutionary interventions, yet opposition analysts argue these gestures amount to high-profile patronage exercises, designed to consolidate loyalty among local elites rather than deliver sustainable development.
Complicating matters, ZANU-PF Secretary for Security Lovemore Matuke last week publicly admonished party members to stop attacking each other in public and on social media, warning that infighting undermines party unity and erodes the credibility of its revolutionary credentials. “Families do not insult one another in public, nor do they tear each other apart before the world,” Matuke said, imploring members to resolve disputes internally.
Yet, in Manicaland, the party’s internal discipline appears tenuous at best. The very events meant to showcase national empowerment have instead exposed bitter competition over resources, contracts, and mining rights. Political analysts note that Tungwarara’s camp has been accused of dominating PCEF allocations to consolidate control over tenders and gold mining concessions, while Tagwire supporters claim marginalisation, fuelling tensions that threaten to overshadow the fund’s stated development goals.
Minister of State for Manicaland, Misheck Mugadza, has urged recipients to channel funds into projects rather than cash disbursements, citing ongoing government investments in infrastructure and value-addition projects in Nyanga. Yet even these interventions are overshadowed by the spectacle of factional rivalry, raising serious questions about whether the PCEF is empowering communities or reinforcing political patronage networks.
Sunday’s event at Sakubva Stadium will therefore be as much a test of Tungwarara’s influence and political clout as it is a showcase of the fund. For critics, the spectacle underscores the contradictions of ZANU-PF’s governance approach: a programme presented as citizen empowerment, yet deeply entangled in factional contestation and resource capture.
For the opposition and civil society, Manicaland has become a microcosm of Zimbabwe’s political economy — where political loyalty, access to resources, and patronage often outweigh governance, transparency, and meaningful development. As Tungwarara wields the PCEF as both a development tool and a political instrument, the question remains whether ordinary citizens will benefit, or simply witness another round of elite competition disguised as empowerment.
