Insight: Time for Zimbabwe to Probe Kuvimba Valuation

On February 6, 2026, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) required Zimbabwe to commit to publishing the audited accounts of all of the individual companies held by the country’s new sovereign wealth fund, the Mutapa Investment Fund.

This disclosure requirement raises the possibility of new information on the valuation of one of those companies: Kuvimba Mining House. This is important because, according to The Sentry, Kuvimba may have been radically overvalued when Mutapa paid mystery shareholders more than a billion dollars—about 5% of Zimbabwe’s GDP—for a 35% stake in Kuvimba. Just before the sale, those shareholders had been linked to Kudakwashe Tagwirei, a fuel tycoon and donor to Zimbabwe’s ruling party. Today, Tagwirei is reportedly a potential candidate to succeed President Mnangagwa.

In December 2023, the valuation of Kuvimba jumped up as Mutapa bought the 35% stake. In earlier share transactions, the government had valued Kuvimba at $2 billion in 2021 and $1.5 billion in 2022. The Sentry reported that leaked financial records from 2019 to 2021 suggest Tagwirei’s companies paid below half a billion dollars for Kuvimba’s constituent mines. But in September 2024, Zimbabwe’s finance minister announced that “the implied valuation of Kuvimba was US$4.5 billion…. That is the valuation that Mutapa was able to furnish us with when they did their transaction for the 35% equity.”

Mutapa’s current position is that Kuvimba was worth $3.2 billion when the 35% stake was purchased using a loan from the government of $1.1 billion (i.e. 35% of $3.2 billion is $1.1 billion). According to Mutapa’s chief executive, the $3.2 billion valuation was the median of two estimates carried out by independent advisory firms. In the newly-established Mutapa’s first annual report, auditors issued a qualified opinion, warning that Mutapa’s subsidiaries “were not measured at fair value at initial recognition.”

If Kuvimba was overvalued, this is not merely a matter of historical interest but is an ongoing scandal. The mystery entities who sold the 35% stake were not paid in cash but instead in Treasury Bills—a form of IOU, whereby the government pays the holder when they mature—with a face value of $1.9 billion. The IMF estimates the purchase of the 35% stake has added about 0.25% of GDP to annual debt servicing costs. Ministry of Finance figures from 2025 show that at least $1.3 billion of the $1.9 billion debt is still outstanding, with $100 million due to be paid each year from 2026 to 2028, $175 million due in 2029, and the remaining $825 million due to be paid between 2030 and 2032. These are huge sums for Zimbabwe.

The IMF’s announcement should enable Zimbabwe’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC), the Parliamentary body charged with scrutinizing public spending, to probe the valuation of Kuvimba and potentially call for a halt to the payments to the mystery shareholders. The PAC should request the publication of all of Kuvimba’s annual accounts since 2020, together with the independent valuations of Kuvimba used to determine the share price. The PAC should also require that the names of the recipients of the $1.9 billion Treasury Bills be made public.

For more information, including policy recommendations, read this Sentry Alert.