The AXiS CCXI (211)

#Issue : CCXI fifffflffiflEarnings SeasonAcceleration Confirmed but Risk AheadFourth Quarter Migration SurgeMasiyiwa Expands Fintech FrontierFourth Quarter Crime SpikeProplastics Posts Record Cash Flow..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

In Focus040608MarketsWorld NewsZSE & VFEX Weekly Markets Dashboard262728Markets WatchZSE & VFEX WeeklyFinancial Markets At a Glance101112141516Masiyiwa Expands Fintech Reach : Stablecoins Reshape African MarketsFourth Quarter Border Flows : Migration Pressures Zimbabwe TransformationPensions in Peril : The Numbers Inside IPEC's Latest Industry ReportFourth Quarter Crime Surge : Economic Pressures Zimbabwe RealityWorking but Struggling : What Sub-Saharan Africa’s Workforce Tells Us About Zim’s FutureUnlocking Dormant Wealth : Turning Zimbabwe’s Idle Property into Productive CapitalEconomic News and AnalysisAt The Apex : Zimbabwe Flexes Lithium Mining Zimbabwe’s Earnings Season : Acceleration confirmed but risks remain intact Zimbabwe Banks’ Earnings Anatomy : The Pivot from Core Banking Activities and What It MeansBusiness Around the WorldPolitics Around the WorldRegional Economic Watch232429 Theequityaxis.net @equity axis @equity axis zimbabwe @equity axis @equity axis @equity axis 08677 197 791 @ aaronc[at]equityaxis.netEQUITY AXISFinancial Insights at your FingertipsCapital Markets 141516RTG: Balance Sheet Growth Meets Reality in a High-Stakes Expansion EraProplastics Posts Record Cash Flow: ZiG Payment Policy Clouds 2026 OutlookZimbabwe Newspapers FY2025 Performance: A Business in Accelerating DeclineThe AXiS CCXI Apr 2026Cover PagePage 08Page 18Page 16ZSE ASI VFEX ASI ZWG INTERBANK RATE 02/0407/0408/0409/0402/0407/0408/0409/0402/0407/0408/0409/04359.27 262.09 25.36360.35 262.23 25.33363.89 250.68 25.24363.32 244.22 25.241.13% -6.82% 0.46% ZSE TOP 10 INDEX MEDIUM CAP INDEX SMALL CAP INDEX 100.11100.11100.11100.110.00% 02/0407/0408/0409/0402/0407/0408/0409/0402/0407/0408/0409/04365.42 360.41366.49 361.62369.44 367.51368.67 367.610.89% 2.00%

fter a sweeping February 2026 ban that shook global supply chains, Harare has moved to soften its stance, offering conditional export waivers that expose the fine line between resource nationalism and investment deterrence. The globe is watching and the cards may not stay in Zimbabwe's hands for long.Chart 1: Zimbabwe lithium volumes surged even as prices collapsed. The Feb 2026 ban created an abrupt break. On the 2nd of April, Zimbabwe's Minister of Mines, sent a letter to the Chamber of Mines that amounted to a conditional retreat from one of the most disruptive resource policy moves on the continent in recent memory. The February 25, 2026 suspension of all raw mineral and lithi- um concentrate exports was announced with immediate effect, catching even in-transit ship- ments delivering maximum shock to global supply chains. Now, Harare is offering a way out, but the conditions attached to that exit reveal contradictions embedded in Zimbabwe's resource nationalism strategy.The waiver framework demands a written com- mitment to building domestic beneficiation facili- ties capable of separating all economic minerals before export, mandatory declaration of all min- erals in export consignments for tax compliance purposes, full acquittal of export proceeds, and a commitment to publish annual company finan- cial statements from December 2025 onwards. Alongside the waiver conditions, a 10% export tax on lithium concentrate will remain in force until the hard January 2027 ban takes effect. In addition, the government is introducing export quotas to manage the transition.The message from Harare reads simultaneous- ly as a softening toward industry, a hardening of compliance expectations, and a warning to free riders. However, it does not resolve is the cen- tral question hanging over Zimbabwe's entire lithium strategy which is whether the country has the institutional capacity, physical infrastructure, and investable credibility to execute the transformation it is demanding of others?As a background, in 2022, Zimbabwe banned the export of raw lithium ore, a move that was broadly welcomed but unevenly enforced, with investigations later revealing stockpiles of min- eral ore still leaving the country through informal channels. In June 2025, the government announced a concentrate export ban to take effect in January 2027, a timeline the industry accepted as workable. Within six months, signals emerged that Harare was considering pulling the date forward. By February 25, 2026, without transitional arrangements, the full ban was imposed with immediate effect, sweeping up even consignments already loaded and in transit.Chart 2: China accounts for ~68% of Zimbabwe's FDI, with over $1.4B in lithium investments alone since 2021.This sequence has a cost that transcended any single policy decision. The U.S. State Depart- ment's 2024 Investment Climate Statement already flagged Zimbabwe's policy inconsisten- cy as a material frustration to foreign direct investment. Investors in capital-intensive indus- tries do not make decisions in quarterly cycles, but in decade-long arcs. When the regulatory goalpost moves mid-game, the risk premium attached to Zimbabwe rises across the board beyond just mining. The draft Mines and Miner- als Bill, gazetted in June 2025, has yet to be enacted. It retains what analysts describe as excessive discretionary ministerial powers and unresolved constitutional inconsistencies which are the architecture of investor uncertainty.The April 2 waiver announcement is, in fairness, a signal of pragmatism. However, it arrives after the economic damage of the February shock has already been registered in forex flows, ZiG currency stability indicators, and the psychology of international capital. Chamber of Mines data showed exploration investment declining 18% year-on-year in Q1 2025 and that was before the February 2026 ban. The policy rever- sal-in-all-but-name of the waiver system risks being read as evidence that Harare will react to pressure rather than execute a coherent, pre-published strategy. That perception, once seeded, is expensive to dislodge.FDI That Doesn't DiversifyAn honest analysis of Zimbabwe's lithium sector shows a structural reality that the beneficiation narrative does not show. the investors who build the processing plants are the same inves- tors who own the mines, and they are almost exclusively Chinese. Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt owns Arcadia while Sinomine controls Bikita, Chengxin Lithium Group and Yahua are present across multiple operations. The Tsingshan Holding Group has a footprint in the sector. Together, these firms represent over $1.4 billion in investment since 2021 and account for the vast majority of the 1.128 million metric tonnes shipped in 2025.Total FDI inflows to Zimbabwe reached $588 million in 2023, according to UNCTAD which is a 48.9% increase year-on-year but still below the pre-crisis peak of $745 million recorded in 2018. China remains the country's dominant investor, accounting for an estimated two-thirds of total FDI by source. Chinese outward FDI flows to Zimbabwe registered at $186.9 million in 2023, though the stock figure of $1 billion (down from $1.6 billion in 2022) showing fluctu- ating corporate valuations and the volatility inherent in mining asset cycles. More than 50% of all FDI flowing into Zimbabwe is directed at the mining sector.The irony of the beneficiation mandate is signifi- cant in that Harare is demanding Chinese com- panies build more infrastructure in Zimbabwe, which they are largely willing to do, because it deepens their control over the value chain. Huayou has already commissioned its $400 million lithium sulphate plant at Arcadia. Sinomi- ne is constructing a $500 million facility at Bikita. These are strategic investments that advance China's grip on the global battery minerals supply chain. Zimbabwe will capture more processing revenue but it will remain inside a Chinese-centred industrial ecosystem. At The Apex*To Page 5Z AThe AXiS CCXI Friday 10 Apr 2026 4Zimbabwe Flexes Lithium Mining

Policymakers in Zimbabwe will have to digress whether this is a stepping stone to genu- ine diversification or a more sophisticated form of dependency.For non-Chinese investors, the Western mining capitals of Toronto, London, and Sydney, the combination of policy unpredictability and Chi- nese incumbency creates a compound deter- rent. The U.S which is keen to build alternative critical minerals supply chains outside China's dominance, has engaged Zimbabwe at the diplomatic level. This however does not auto- matically translate to corporate commitment in a jurisdiction where the rules can change over- night.Zimbabwe's fiscal architecture is also uncom- fortably concentrated with Gold alone contribut- ing almost 50% of all export proceeds. Minerals collectively account for over 70–75% of total exports and roughly 14% of GDP. The ZiG currency which was introduced in 2024 as a gold-backed instrument intended to stabilise monetary conditions, is directly exposed to the performance of the extractive sector. When gold flows thin as they did in early 2025, when earn- ings fell from a November 2024 high of $361.1 million to just $216.8 million by February 2025 despite record global gold prices, the conse- quences run directly into currency reserves, inflation, and the government's fiscal position.The gold earnings decline, paradoxically occur- ring amid an extraordinary global price rally that broke $3,000 per ounce, exposes the structural weaknesses in Zimbabwe's mineral revenue capture. Illicit trade, suppressed official prices, intermediary losses, and the 30% forex reten- tion requirement (reduced from a prior 25% forex surrender in February 2025) have all eroded the connection between production volumes and formal revenue. Estimates sug- gest Zimbabwe loses more than $660 million per quarter in gold smuggling alone. Against this background, the lithium export ban imposes an estimated short-term revenue cost of $1 to $1.2 billion, representing approximately 30 to 35% of MMCZ revenues and 10 to 15% of total exports. The Minerals Marketing Corpora- tion of Zimbabwe projected $3.5 billion in reve- nues for 2026 before the ban. With gold's struc- tural vulnerabilities compounding the mining sector's forex contribution, the pressure on fiscal accounts is material. The ZiG's credibility depends on the sustainability of its reserve backing, which in turn depends on the health of formal mineral exports. A lithium policy that disrupts $1 billion in annual forex inflows without rapidly replacing them through sulphate exports is, in the short run, a direct threat to monetary stability.Chart 3: The lithium market is pivoting from surplus to deficit in 2026–27. Zimbabwe's ban adds supply pressure but the window is time-limit- ed.A Commodity Window That Won't Stay OpenThe timing of Zimbabwe's aggressive posture on lithium is against the backdrop of a swing towards global lithium deficit. This comes after two years of punishing oversupply that saw lithi- um carbonate prices crash more than 80% from their 2022 peak of roughly 150,000 yuan per tonne. Fastmarkets projected a market surplus of just 10,000 tonnes in 2025, transitioning to a small but symbolically significant deficit of 1,500 tonnes in 2026. Morgan Stanley projects a more aggressive 80,000-tonne shortfall depending on how quickly idled capacity restarts. Chinese spot prices have already rebounded 57% from their June 2025 lows.Zimbabwe's February suspension arrived precisely as prices were recovering and the supply was tightening. Its 1.128 million metric tonnes of spodumene exports which is equiva- lent to roughly 15% of China's total lithium con- centrate imports, created immediate ripple effects. Battery makers scrambled to advance orders ahead of a Chinese VAT export rebate cut from 9% to 6% in April, adding short-term demand compression. The geopolitical reality of China's battery supply chain dependency on Zimbabwe elevated Harare's position in global commodity diplomacy, at least temporarily.But Zimbabwe must be sober about the durabili- ty of this leverage. Global lithium resources are vast, the world holds estimated recoverable minerals of 35.5 million metric tonnes of lithium, with low-cost Australian brine and hard-rock operations accounting for much of accessible supply. Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia sit atop the world's largest lithium brine reserves. Indone- sia's aggressive industrial policy and DRC's emerging role are reshaping the supply land- scape. Demand for lithium is projected to triple by 2030, reaching over 3 million tonnes of LCE annually. The window in which Zimbabwe's volume matters will narrow as new projects commission globally.Can Zimbabwe Actually BeneficiateChart 4: Only Huayou (Arcadia) is fully compliant while Sinomine is in construction. Others compa- nies face waiver risk and peer comparisons show Indonesia's ban model as the most instructive. The government's insistence on beneficiation is philosophically sound. The transformation from raw spodumene concentrate, worth roughly $500 per tonne, to lithium sulphate, an interme- diate processing step targeting approximately $1,400 per tonne, represents a nearly threefold value uplift before Zimbabwe even approaches battery-grade lithium carbonate, currently priced above $13,000 per tonne. The arithmetic of ben- eficiation is compelling but the logistics are con- siderably more demanding.Processing lithium concentrate into sulphate and then into battery-grade materials requires reliable, abundant, and affordable electricity. Zimbabwe's total installed power generation capacity stands at 2.3GW, with generation historically falling well below installed capacity due to ageing infrastructure and declining Kariba hydro levels. Roads serving mining sites, originally built for passenger traffic, are deterio- rating under heavy ore truck loads. The country ranks 173rd out of 184 on the Index of Econom- ic Freedom and 158th on the Corruption Per- ceptions Index. These indicators speak to the operating environment facing any investor con- sidering large-scale fixed capital investment in processing infrastructure.The readiness assessment across key players is also starkly uneven. Huayou Cobalt, through its Arcadia operation, commissioned a $400 million lithium sulphate plant in 2025 and is immediately waiver-eligible under the new con- ditions. Sinomine's $500 million facility at Bikita is under construction and expected to reach partial capacity in the second half of 2026. Kamativi Lithium began sulphate plant construc- tion in February 2026 which means it is at least twelve months from commissioning. Chengxin and Yahua have no confirmed processing investments in place and face the most acute waiver risk, with their export revenues entirely suspended in the interim.The practical consequence is that of the roughly $571.6 million in lithium concentrate export revenue earned in 2025, only a fraction will be replaceable through compliant sulphate exports in 2026. The SMM analysis estimates Zimba- bwe will be able to export approximately 90,000 tonnes of LCE from compliant operations in 2026, representing roughly 45% of total annual lithium supply capacity. The remaining 55% stays locked in until processing facilities come online, a multi-year timeline that imposes signifi- cant carrying costs on the fiscal and forex posi- tion.The policy position by Zimbabwe is not without regional precedent. Indonesia introduced a full ban on raw nickel ore exports model in 2020 which is the most instructive parallel for Zimba- bwe. Jakarta's ban catalysed over $30 billion in downstream FDI, rapidly building stainless steel and battery materials capacity. But Indonesia entered the process with substantially more favourable power infrastructure, a larger and more diversified economy, a stronger institution- al base, and a more coherent investor frame- work. Chile's approach of negotiating a partial nation- alisation of lithium producers through the SQM model and extracting a 50% profit share while securing a $1.5 billion investment pledge, offers a more reliable alternative that Zimbabwe has not yet explored. Australia chose not to ban exports at all and instead channelled processing subsidies and tax credits to attract downstream investment, a model that enabled Tesla to build a Texas lithium refinery anchored by Australian spodumene offtake.Zimbabwe's chosen path entailing an abrupt ban, followed by a conditional waiver system, sits uncomfortably between these models. It has the coercive intent of Indonesia's policy without Indonesia's institutional readiness, and it lacks the negotiated structure of Chile's approach. The risk is that it achieves the worst of both worlds: deterring new Western investment while failing to meaningfully accelerate the beneficia- tion timeline of existing Chinese operators who will proceed at their own pace regardless.*From Page 4The AXiS CCXI Friday 10 Apr 2026 5*To Page 6

The AXiS CCXI Friday 10 Apr 2026 6*To Page 8 What Local Producers Are SayingThe Chamber of Mines of Zimbabwe, notably, did not immediately respond to requests for comment when the waiver conditions were first published , a silence that speaks volumes in a sector where trade associations typically issue rapid-response statements. Across the industry, private communications suggest a nuanced reaction: cautious relief from operators who are compliant or close to compliance, genuine alarm from those with no processing infrastruc- ture, and a broader, low-voiced concern about what the February episode revealed about how policy is formulated and communicated in Zim- babwe.Industry representatives have consistently raised three issues in off-the-record engage- ments with analysts: the 30% foreign exchange retention requirement that strips dollar revenues from capital-intensive operations; the absence of a clear, bankable, long-term regulatory framework that would allow companies to raise debt against beneficiation project cash flows; and the infrastructure deficit, particularly power, that makes large-scale processing facilities eco- nomically marginal at current energy costs. These are not rhetorical complaints. They are the structural constraints that the government's beneficiation mandate must navigate if it is to produce outcomes rather than headlines.What Corporates Should Read from This MomentThe Axis Corporate Intelligence: Key Take- awaysPolicy risk in Zimbabwe is real and must be priced into any investment thesis across all sec- tors, not just mining. The February 2026 episode was not an isolated event; it is a pattern.Chinese operators have structural advantages in navigating Zimbabwe's regulatory environ- ment: deeper relationships, tolerance for lower short-term returns, and strategic alignment with Harare's beneficiation goals. Western capital must price in higher execution risk.Compliant operators (Huayou/Arcadia) are positioned as preferred counterparties for offtake agreements, credit facilities, and equip- ment supply contracts. Proximity to compliance is a commercial differentiator. The ZiG curren- cy's stability is indirectly exposed to mining sector forex flows. Any corporate with significant Zimbabwe balance sheet exposure, in banking, retail, telecoms, or insurance, should model downside ZiG scenarios tied to sustained mining revenue disruption.Suppliers to the mining sector through power equipment, water treatment, civil engineering, logistics face a structural demand uplift from beneficiation capex but also a short-term reve- nue gap as suspended operators pause expan- sion plans. Exploration-stage companies and junior miners face the sharpest investor deter- rence effect. The 18% exploration investment decline in Q1 2025 is a leading indicator; 2026 numbers are likely to be worse without a clear, binding regulatory framework.Investors in Zimbabwe sovereign and corporate debt instruments should note that the IMF and World Bank view policy consistency as a prerequisite for reform programme credibility. The February 2026 ban, and its subsequent conditional reversal, will feature in Zimbabwe's next Article IV consultation and in sovereign credit assessments.Credit, Reform, and the Sustainability of GrowthZimbabwe's macroeconomic trajectory entering 2026 carried the most promising signals in nearly two decades. The ZiG inflation rate had fallen to 4.1% in January 2026 the country's first single-digit local currency inflation reading in more than twenty years. Monetary policy tight- ening had produced visible results, and the gold sector's record output of 46.7 tonnes in 2025 provided a credible reserve backing for the currency. Caledonia Mining announced $132 million in development spending for what could become Zimbabwe's largest gold mine. The country's IMF Article IV consultations were beginning to reflect tentative stabilisation language.The lithium ban, in this context, arrived not as an isolated sector intervention but as a signal about the nature of Zimbabwe's reform process. International creditors and multilateral institu- tions, the IMF, World Bank, and African Devel- opment Bank, assess Zimbabwe's creditworthi- ness through a lens that weights institutional predictability heavily. A government that can impose an immediate, economy-wide export suspension without consultation, transitional arrangements, or parliamentary process is a government that can do so again. The risk premium that attaches to Zimbabwe's credit profile is not simply about debt service capacity, it is about the reliability of the policy environ- ment in which that capacity is embedded.The structural challenge for Zimbabwe is that its reform narrative, \"open for business,\" Vision 2030, upper-middle income status, depends on sustaining FDI flows and mineral revenue at sufficient scale to fund public services, infra- structure, and debt obligations. If the lithium strategy succeeds in its long-term intent, it adds a materially higher-value revenue stream that funds development without the country selling its birthright cheap. But the pathway to that outcome runs through years of fiscal and forex pressure, beneficiation infrastructure invest- ment, power sector rehabilitation, and institutional capacity building that the current govern- ment has not yet credibly demonstrated.The risk that concerns sophisticated observers is not that Zimbabwe's lithium strategy is wrong in principle, it isn't. The risk is that it is right in aspiration but wrong in sequencing, capacity, and execution architecture. A nation that holds the sixth-largest lithium reserves on earth, exports 15% of China's concentrate imports, and sits at the inflection point of the global energy transition should, in theory, hold signifi- cant negotiating power. Whether it can convert geological endowment into sustainable eco- nomic transformation depends on governance outcomes that a waiver letter, however well-crafted, cannot guarantee.The Long View: Will Zimbabwe Hold the Cards?The global lithium market is moving toward defi- cit in 2026 and 2027. Production cuts in Austra- lia and China are tightening supply. EV adoption continues to accelerate, with sales forecast to exceed 25 million units globally by 2026 and 50 million by 2030. Energy storage is adding a structural demand layer that did not exist at scale five years ago. In this environment, Zim- babwe's reserves and production scale matter. The country's leverage is genuine, and the Feb- ruary 2026 ban demonstrated, with a price response in Chinese spot markets, that the leverage is real and immediate.But leverage is a wasting asset if not converted into durable terms. The global lithium supply base is geographically dispersed in ways that oil's is not. Chile's brines, Argentina's emerging production, the DRC's growing role, and Austra- lia's hard-rock operations provide Chinese and Western battery makers with material diversifi- cation options over a three-to-five year horizon. As new projects commission and as battery chemistry innovations, particularly sodium-ion batteries begin to reduce lithium intensity at the margin, Zimbabwe's pricing power will diminish. The window is open now. It will not remain open indefinitely.For Zimbabwe, the calculus resolves to this: the beneficiation mandate is structurally correct, but only if it is executed with institutional rigour, a published and binding regulatory roadmap, gen- uine power infrastructure investment, and a financial structure potentially through the Mutapa Investment Fund, that enables pub- lic-private co-investment in processing capacity. Without these foundations, the waiver gambit risks being remembered as an episode in which Zimbabwe briefly held the world's attention, extracted a few compliance commitments from Chinese operators who were going to invest anyway, and then watched the window close while the hard work of industrialisation remained undone.*From Page 5irst Capital Bank Limited, the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange-listed commercial bank that traces its origins to the Barclays Bank Zimbabwe franchise and rebranded under its current identity, reported profit after tax of US$30.08 million for the year ended 31 Decem- ber 2025, against a restated comparative of US$19.84 million for 2024. The bank describes this as a 52% increase in profitability, a charac- terisation that is arithmetically correct and ana- lytically incomplete. Net income for the year was US$84.4 million, up from US$74.3 million. The cost-to-income ratio improved dramatically from 63% to 47%, a 16-percentage point compres- sion that on its own would represent a signifi- cant operational achievement for any bank in any jurisdiction. Total assets grew, loans expanded, and the bank marks its 30th anniver- sary in Zimbabwe with its best reported profit in its history. Every statement in that paragraph is true. What is also true is that the foundation on which the comparison rests was formally restat- ed, that the income line most responsible for the prior year's reported performance has virtually disappeared, and that a material write-off of government paper passed through the 2025 income statement without generating the ana- lytical scrutiny it deserves.The restatement is the least discussed aspect of First Capital Bank's FY2025 results and ana- lytically the most important for establishing what the 52% profit growth actually measures. The originally reported profit after tax for the year ended 31 December 2024 was US$21.96 million. The comparative figure presented in the First Capital’s 30 Million ProfitA Restatement, a Write-Off, and the Real Growth Story InsideF

The AXiS CCXI Friday 10 Apr 2026 7 FY2025 results is US$19.84 million. The difference is US$2.12 million, a downward revi- sion of 9.7% to the prior year's headline profit number. Financial statement restatements occur when a material error is identified in a prior period's financial statements that requires correction under IAS 8, Accounting Policies, Changes in Accounting Estimates and Errors. The nature of the error that caused the US$2.12 million restatement is not specifically disclosed in the abridged results, which is consistent with common practice for abridged financials but represents information that shareholders com- paring the 2025 result against their recollection of the 2024 announcement require in order to make that comparison meaningfully.The practical consequence of the restatement for the profit growth narrative is specific. If the 2024 profit had remained at its originally report- ed US$21.96 million, the 2025 PAT of US$30.08 million would represent growth of 37%, not 52%. The additional 15 percentage points of reported growth is an arithmetical product of the downward restatement of the base year, not of incremental 2025 performance. This does not mean the 2025 performance is weak, as a 37% growth in profit after tax would still be a strong result. But the published 52% figure, unqualified by the restatement context, presents a picture of performance momentum that is partly a func- tion of measuring from a lower point than share- holders were originally told was the starting line. The second dimension of the earnings quality story is the near-total disappearance of foreign exchange revaluation gains from First Capital Bank's 2025 income statement. In 2024, the bank recorded FX revaluation gains of approxi- mately US$6 million, a line item that reflected the translation of foreign currency-denominated assets and positions into USD-equivalent values as the ZiG exchange rate moved during that year. These gains are not cash. They are accounting entries that arise from currency movements and reverse or compound in subse- quent periods depending on how exchange rates evolve. They require no commercial activi- ty, no customer relationship, and no operational effort. They are generated by holding foreign currency positions at a moment when the ZiG depreciates relative to USD. In 2024, with the ZiG experiencing the 43% devaluation of Sep- tember and the subsequent volatility, a bank with a net long foreign currency position would have recorded exactly the kind of revaluation gain the 2024 income statement reflects.In 2025, those gains collapsed to under US$0.5 million, a reduction of more than US$5.5 million in a single year. The ZiG stabilised significantly in the post-September 2024 period, which is precisely why the revaluation gain vanished. When the exchange rate does not move dramatically, FX revaluation gains do not appear. The collapse of this income line is therefore a direct consequence of improved monetary policy outcomes, the stability that the RBZ achieved from Q4 2024 onward eliminated the mechanism that generated US$6 million of accounting profit in 2024. Strip US$6 million from the originally reported 2024 PAT of US$21.96 million, and the FX-adjusted operat- ing earnings for 2024 were approximately US$15.96 million. Against this FX-adjusted base, the 2025 PAT of US$30.08 million, which contains virtually no equivalent FX gain, represents growth of approximately 88% in gen- uine operating earnings quality. That is the number that describes what the bank's core business actually did in 2025, and it is signifi- cantly more impressive than the 52% headline, but it requires the analyst to do the work of iden- tifying and stripping the non-recurring income from the prior year before the comparison becomes meaningful.Embedded within First Capital Bank's 2025 income state- ment is a write-off of US$2.13 million in treasury bills. Trea- sury bills are short-term govern- ment securities, issued by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe on behalf of the sovereign, that banks typically hold as part of their liquidity manage- ment portfolios. They are classified as low-risk instru- ments precisely because they repre- sent an obligation of the government, which is assumed to be able to print or otherwise source the local currency required to meet its debt obligations at maturity. A write-off of treasury bills means the bank has determined that some portion of the government paper in its portfolio will not be recovered at par and has recognised that expectation as a loss in the income statement. The US$2.13 million write-off is not the largest line in the 2025 finan- cial statements, but it is one of the most analyti- cally revealing, because it represents a bank making a formal accounting determination that the sovereign's paper in its portfolio is worth less than its face value.What the existence of the write-off confirms is that First Capital Bank's credit risk assessment process has identified government paper in its portfolio as impaired. In a banking sector where prescribed assets regulations require institu- tions to hold significant proportions of their port- folios in government-linked instruments, the ability of those instruments to preserve value is not an abstract governance question, but a direct financial statement consequence that US$2.13 million of 2025 income has absorbed, reducing the reported profit by that amount and reducing the starting point for 2026 earnings from what it would otherwise have been. Against a PAT of US$30.08 million the write-off represents 7% of reported earnings, material by any accounting standard's definition of material- ity.The cost-to-income ratio improvement from 63% to 47% is the most operationally significant metric in the First Capital Bank FY2025 results and has been appropriately highlighted in the bank's own communications about the result. A 16-percentage point improvement in CIR in a single year is exceptional by any regional bank- ing standard. The question that the income composition analysis raises, however, is how much of that improvement is genuine operation- al efficiency and how much is a mechanical con- sequence of the income denominator growing while costs grew less quickly. Net income grew from US$74.3 million to US$84.4 million, a 13.6% increase. If the bank's cost base grew at a rate below 13.6%, the CIR will improve purely as a mathematical consequence of income growing faster than expenses, regardless of any deliberate efficiency programme. The FX revaluation gain collapse in 2024, which inflated that year's income denominator while requiring no corresponding operating cost, would have suppressed the 2024 CIR had it been stripped out, meaning the 63% CIR in 2024 may itself have been artificially elevated by the fact that the FX gains disappeared and needed to be replaced by operational income that carries higher associated costs.The honest answer to whether the CIR improve- ment is structural or mechanical is that it is prob- ably both simultaneously. First Capital Bank has demonstrably improved its operational efficien- cy; the direction of the improvement is genuine and the absolute level of 47% is competitive relative to regional peers. The magnitude of the improvement in a single year, and the coinci- dence of that improvement with the simultane- ous disappearance of FX gains and the restate- ment of the prior year base, makes the 16-per- centage point figure difficult to interpret in isola- tion without the full income and cost line disag- gregation that the abridged results do not provide. What can be said with confidence is that a bank operating at a 47% cost-to-income ratio is deploying its income generation more efficiently than one operating at 63%, and that if this level is sustainable in 2026 as FX gains remain absent and core lending income becomes the primary driver, the operating leverage in the business is genuinely favourable. The caution is simply that the comparison year from which the 16-percentage point improvement is measured was not a normal year by First Capital Bank's own accounting standards, having been formal- ly restated and having included a non-recurring income source of US$6 million that has since disappeared.First Capital Bank enters 2026 with a materially transformed earnings base relative to where it stood entering 2025. The FX revaluation gain windfall of 2024 will not recur unless the ZiG experiences another dramatic depreciation event, which the current monetary policy stance is specifically designed to prevent. The 2025 result is therefore a cleaner read of what the bank's core business generates: net interest income, fees and commissions, and transaction volumes across a customer base that has grown alongside Zimbabwe's gradual economic recovery. The US$30.08 million PAT achieved in 2025 without the assistance of material FX gains is a more durable earnings foundation than the US$21.96 million originally reported for 2024 with US$6 million of that total sourced from currency movements. The bank is a genu- inely better operating business in 2025 than it was in 2024, and the restatement and FX analy- sis support rather than undermine that conclu- sion, they simply reframe which 16% or which 52% most accurately describes the journey.The forward risks are the credit quality deterio- ration documented in the Stage 3 NPL data, which rose 434% to US$6.86 million with impairment charges increasing twentyfold, and the broader question of whether Zimbabwe's lending environment in 2026, with ZiG payment policy pressures, fuel cost pass-through infla- tion, and Middle East supply chain disruption affecting import-dependent businesses, will generate further credit stress in the loan book that the 2025 income statement absorbed only partially. The treasury bill write-off adds a sovereign credit dimension to an institution that is structur- ally required to hold government paper. If that write-off reflects a broader concern about the quality of government securities in bank portfoli- os, the prescribed assets regulatory framework that directs bank capital toward government instruments becomes a transmission mecha- nism for sovereign credit risk into bank earn- ings, a risk that is not unique to First Capital Bank but that is visible in its 2025 results in a way that deserves systematic monitoring across the sector. The 30th anniversary result is strong. Reading it correctly requires understanding both what is in the numbers and what has quiet- ly left them.*From Page 7

The AXiS CCXI Friday 10 Apr 2026 8Zhe announcement by First Banking Corporation Holdings (FBCH) at an Analyst Briefing that property development will contribute more to Group earnings than its core banking business in the fore- seeable future is not an isolated corporate statement, but a signal of a structural shift that has been building quietly across Zimbabwe's financial sector for nearly a decade. ZBFH is following the same trajectory, having acquired an asset management arm in October 2025 with a clear focus on real estate. ZBFH already holds close to 60% of Mashonaland Hold- ings Limited (Mashhold), the ZSE-listed property investment company whose portfolio was valued at US$94.7 million as at December 2025. The irony is that ZBFH is simultaneously liquidating its Building Society, an entity historically designed to provide mortgage finance, while doubling down on owning and developing the very properties that building societ- ies were created to help Zimbabweans buy. FBCH has followed a parallel path, closing its building society and rebranding or rather incorporating it into FBC Properties. To understand why banks are making this pivot, one must first appreciate the structural problem with their core business. Globally, net interest income, which is the spread between what banks earn on loans and what they pay on deposits, constitutes approximately 65% of a typical commer- cial bank's total income. In the SADC region, that figure averages around 58%. In Zimbabwe, it is closer to 30–40% for major groups. What fills the gap is fee and commission income, which accounts for 40–50% of total income at most, if not all, commercial banks, well above the global norm of 22%. This reflects a decade of structural inability to profitably deploy capital into long-term lending.The reasons are straightforward. Long-term lending requires long-term deposit funding, and that funding must be priced in a currency that will not depreciate materially before the loan matures. Zimbabwe has experi- enced serial currency episodes which include the hyperinflation of 2008, the dollarisation of 2009, the introduction of bond notes in 2016, the RTGS dollar, the Zimbabwe dollar, and now the ZiG. Each transition has imposed losses on lenders holding long-duration assets in a depreciating local currency. The rational response has been to shorten loan books, price borrowings at short tenors, and extract income from transactional activity rather than from the time-value of money. The result is a banking system that looks and behaves more like a payments utility than a finan- cial intermediary.Property upends this logic entirely. Hard real assets denominated in US dollars hold value through currency cycles. Rental income, particularly in commercial and industrial sectors, is largely collected in USD. Capital appreciation in property, at least in Zimbabwe's supply-constrained urban markets, has consistently outpaced inflation and currency depreciation. For a bank group sitting on substantial USD liquidity with few creditworthy long-duration lending opportunities, buying and developing property is not a distraction from banking as one might presume, but a rational deployment of capital in the absence of a functioning long-term credit market.Mashhold's FY2025 results illustrate the appeal. Revenue grew 12.5% year-on-year to US$8.1 million, rental income expanded 12.6% to US$6.3 million, occupancy held at 89%, and the investment portfolio appreciated 3%. Profit after tax rose 8% to US$4 million. For ZBFH share- holders, that translates to a ~60% stake in a growing, USD-denominated cash-generative asset base worth nearly US$95 million. The strategic logic is difficult to argue with.Yet the concentration risk embedded in this pivot deserves serious exam- ination. The overwhelming majority of formal commercial and industrial property in Zimbabwe is in the capital city, Harare, and its surrounding corridors. Mashhold's new developments, for example, the 30 Coronation Avenue apartments in Greendale and the Pomona Commercial Centre represent early-stage diversification, but the sector remains deeply Hara- re-centric. When FBCH, ZBFH, CBZ, and pension funds all compete for the same finite pool of prime Harare commercial property, the risk of price saturation becomes real. Yield compression in urban commercial real estate is already visible. Cap rates in Harare's CBD have narrowed mate- rially over the past three years as institutional buyers have crowded in. A correction in Harare property values, triggered by oversupply, a macro- economic shock, or a sudden shift in office or retail demand patterns, would simultaneously impair the balance sheets of multiple financial insti- tutions with correlated exposures.The mono-currency question adds another dimension of risk that is not fully priced into current strategies. The government has indicated a desire to transition to a ZiG-only monetary regime once economic fundamentals stabilise, while simultaneously assuring that USD-denominated contracts will be honoured. Banks remain sceptical, and that scepticism is rational. A genuine mono-currency transition would compress USD deposits which are currently the dominant source of bank funding, and force a repricing of USD-denominated rental income, property valuations, and investment returns into ZiG terms. If the ZiG were to depreciate meaningfully post-transition, the USD-denominated value of property income streams would remain intact for property owners but would create complexity for financial institutions that have borrowed in ZiG to finance USD assets, or vice versa. The direction of income mix under a mono-currency regime would depend critically on the credibility and pace of that transition. A managed, credible transition could actually unlock the long-term lending business that banks have been unable to pursue for two decades. A cha- otic or politically-driven transition would compound the same structural problems that drove banks into property in the first place.On the other hand, a comparison with regional peers is instructive but sobering. South African banks like Absa, Standard Bank, FirstRand, etc, generate the majority of their income from net interest income, supple- mented by well-developed retail and corporate lending franchises, insur- ance arms, and investment banking. Their property exposure exists within diversified wealth management and real estate finance divisions rather than as a primary earnings driver. Kenyan, Nigerian, and Ghanaian banks similarly earn the bulk of income from lending spreads, with trans- actional and investment income as supplements. The divergence between Zimbabwe's income structure and the regional norm reflects a fundamental breakdown in the credit intermediation function that banks are supposed to perform.The risk of a saturated Harare property market, the structural absence of long-term lending capacity, the uncertainty surrounding mono-currency policy, and the irony of building societies being dismantled by the very holding companies that own them, are all symptoms of the same underly- ing condition of a financial system that cannot price and allocate long-term risk in local currency. Until that capacity is restored, Zimba- bwe's banks will continue to look more like property companies with bank- ing licences than banks with investment properties. Whether that ultimately serves shareholders, depositors, and the broader economy is a question that the next currency chapter will likely answer with some finali- ty.TZim Banks’ Earnings AnatomyThe Pivot from Core Banking Activities and What It Means

The AXiS CCXI Friday 10 Apr 2026 10*To Page 11frica’s financial system is entering a defining moment, shaped by the conver- gence of global fintech expansion and domestic digital policy ambition. The recent partnership between Circle Internet Group and Cassava Technologies is not simply another corporate deal. It represents a deeper structural shift in how money moves, how value is stored, and how African economies position themselves within an increasingly digitised global system.At the centre of this development is the deploy- ment of USDC, a dollar-backed stablecoin issued by Circle, into Cassava’s fintech ecosys- tem, particularly through Sasai Fintech. This move signals Circle’s first major entry into Africa, a region long characterised by fragmented payment systems, high transaction costs, and limit- ed financial interoperability across borders. For Cassava, a company backed by Zimbabwe- an entrepreneur Strive Masiyiwa, the partnership strengthens its ambition to build a conti- nent-wide digital infrastructure that connects millions of users across more than 30 markets.The implications of this partner- ship are both immediate and far-reaching. At a basic level, stablecoins such as USDC prom- ise faster, cheaper, and more reliable cross-border transac- tions. African businesses and individuals have historically faced delays and high fees when transferring money across borders, often relying on interme- diaries that add cost and ineffi- ciency. By embedding a digital dollar into a widely used fintech plat- form, the Circle–Cassava alliance introduces a mechanism for near-instant settlement and reduced transaction friction.However, the real significance lies beyond efficiency gains. Stablecoins are increasingly becoming instruments of financial resilience in economies marked by currency volatility. In sev- eral African countries, local currencies have experienced persistent depreciation, eroding purchasing power and complicating long-term financial planning. Under such conditions, dollar-backed digital assets offer an alternative store of value that is both accessible and rela- tively stable. This has led to a quiet but notable shift in user behaviour, where digital dollars are not just used for transactions but also for sav- ings and wealth preservation.This trend is particularly relevant in Zimbabwe, where currency instability has shaped economic behaviour for decades. The integration of USDC into Sasai’s platform introduces a formalised and scalable channel for accessing dollar-de- nominated value without relying on traditional banking systems. It effectively bridges the gap between informal dollarisation practices and regulated digital finance.The partnership also reflects a broader reconfig- uration of Africa’s fintech landscape. For years, mobile money platforms dominated the narra- tive of financial inclusion, with services like mobile wallets enabling millions to access basic financial tools. However, the next phase of this evolution is being driven by interoperability, cross-border integration, and the ability to con- nect African markets to global financial systems. Stablecoins sit at the intersection of these dynamics, offering a digital infrastructure layer that transcends national boundaries.At the same time, the deal highlights growing global interest in Africa as a fintech frontier. Circle’s expansion into the continent under- scores the recognition that Africa’s young, mobile-first population represents one of the most dynamic digital markets in the world. With increasing smartphone penetration and a rising entrepreneurial class, demand for efficient and globally connected financial services is acceler- ating. The partnership positions both Circle and Cassava at the forefront of this transformation, combining global financial technology with local infrastructure and market knowledge.However, this financial shift is unfolding along- side another critical development within Zimba- bwe itself. Just weeks before the Circle–Cassa- va announcement, the government launched the Zimbabwe National Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2026–2030 under the leadership of Emmerson Mnangagwa. While at first glance these two developments may appear unrelated, they are in fact deeply interconnected.The AI strategy outlines Zimbabwe’s ambition to embed advanced digital technologies across key sectors of the economy, from agriculture and healthcare to public administration and financial services. It emphasises the importance of data infrastructure, digital skills, and innova- tion ecosystems as foundations for economic transformation. Crucially, it positions technology not as an abstract concept but as a practical tool for improving productivity, governance, and inclusion.When viewed together, the stablecoin partner- ship and the AI strategy reveal a coordinated, if not formally aligned, shift toward a digitally enabled economic model. Financial infrastruc- ture and data-driven systems are mutually rein- forcing. Stablecoins generate trans- action data, enable digital com- merce, and facilitate cross-border economic activity. AI systems, in turn, rely on data to optimise decision-making, detect patterns, and improve service delivery. The integration of both creates a feedback loop that can acceler- ate economic development.Consider the potential impact on financial services. With stable- coins enabling seamless transac- tions, AI can be deployed to anal- yse transaction patterns, assess creditworthiness, and expand access to financial products. This could address one of Africa’s most persistent challenges: limit- ed access to credit for small busi- nesses and informal entrepre- neurs. By combining digital pay- ment histories with AI-driven ana- lytics, financial institutions can develop more inclusive lending models that reflect real economic activity rather than relying solely on traditional collateral.The agricultural sector offers another compel- ling example. Zimbabwe’s AI strategy highlights precision agriculture as a priority area, using data to guide planting decisions, optimise resource use, and improve yields. Stable- coin-based payment systems can complement this by enabling farmers to receive payments quickly, access inputs through digital market- places, and participate in regional trade networks without facing currency conversion barriers. The result is a more integrated and efficient agricultural value chain.Nevertheless, these opportunities come with important challenges that cannot be overlooked. The adoption of stablecoins raises regulatory questions around monetary sovereignty, finan- cial stability, and consumer protection. Govern- ments must balance the benefits of digital finan- cial innovation with the need to maintain control over domestic monetary systems. Excessive reliance on dollar-backed digital currencies could, in some cases, weaken local currencies further, complicating macroeconomic manage- ment.Similarly, the deployment of AI systems Masiyiwa Expands Fintech ReachStablecoins Reshape African Markets& AnalysisA

The AXiS CCXI Friday 10 Apr 2026 11*From Page 10 introduces concerns about data privacy, algo- rithmic bias, and ethical governance. Zimba- bwe’s AI strategy acknowledges these risks, emphasising the need for transparent, fair, and accountable systems. The success of both stablecoin adoption and AI integration will depend on the strength of regulatory frame- works and the capacity of institutions to enforce them effectively.Infrastructure also remains a critical constraint. Digital finance and AI systems require reliable internet connectivity, robust data centres, and consistent energy supply. While companies like Cassava are investing heavily in digital infra- structure, including data centres and cloud services, gaps remain across many parts of the continent. Addressing these gaps will require sustained investment from both the public and private sectors.Despite these challenges, the convergence of stablecoins and national digital strategies signals a broader shift in Africa’s economic trajectory. The continent is moving beyond incremental digital adoption toward systemic transformation, where technology reshapes core economic functions. Payments, trade, gov- ernance, and production are increasingly being redefined through digital platforms and data-driven systems.For Zimbabwe, this moment carries particular significance. The alignment of private sector innovation with national policy ambition creates a window of opportunity to leapfrog traditional development pathways. By embracing both digi- tal finance and advanced technologies, the country can position itself as a regional hub for innovation and investment.For businesses and investors, the message is clear. Africa’s digital economy is not a distant prospect but an unfolding reality. The Circle–Cassava partnership demonstrates that global players are willing to commit resources and expertise to the continent. The AI strategy shows that governments are equally committed to creating an enabling environment for techno- logical transformation.The question now is not whether Africa will participate in the digital economy, but how it will shape and be shaped by it. Stablecoins and AI are not isolated trends. They are part of a larger narrative about control, inclusion, and the future of economic systems. Their intersection in Zim- babwe offers a glimpse into what that future might look like: a more connected, data-driven, and globally integrated African economy.What remains to be seen is how effectively these initiatives translate from ambition to impact. Implementation will determine whether the promise of faster payments, greater inclu- sion, and smarter systems becomes a lived reality for millions. The foundations are being laid. The next phase will define the outcome.*To Page 12imbabwe’s fourth quarter migration data for 2025 reveals a complex and evolving mobility landscape shaped by economic pressures, regional integration, and shifting travel behaviour. Far from being a simple record of movements, the data highlights structural tensions between domestic economic condi- tions and regional opportunities. A total of 1,343,024 arrivals were recorded during the fourth quarter, with returning residents account- ing for a dominant 64% of all entries, signalling the continued circular nature of Zimbabwean migration.At first glance, the prominence of returning resi- dents may suggest a stabilising migration system. However, a deeper analysis points to something more nuanced. The number of returning residents declined sharply by 23% compared to the same period in 2024, falling from over 1.1 million to 858,611. This contrac- tion raises important policy questions about the sustainability of circular migration patterns. It may reflect weakening economic pull factors at home, increased barriers abroad, or changing strategies among migrants who are choosing longer stays outside the country.In contrast, visitors from abroad increased mod- estly by 3%, reaching 484,413 in the fourth quarter. While this growth appears positive, its composition is critical. Nearly half of these visitors (47%) came for holidays, confirming tourism as a key pillar of inbound mobility. How- ever, the relatively small but rapidly growing segments, business (up 18%) and education (up 61%), are more significant from a structural perspective. These categories indicate emerg- ing economic linkages and knowledge flows that could have longer-term development impli- cations if properly leveraged. The sharp increase in education-related visits, although from a low base, is particularly nota- ble. It suggests Zimbabwe’s re-emergence, albeit modest, as a regional education hub. At the same time, the rise in business travel signals renewed commercial engagement, pos- sibly driven by regional trade dynamics and cross-border entrepreneurship. These trends align with broader continental shifts under regional integration frameworks, but they remain constrained by domestic economic vola- tility and infrastructural limitations.Total Departures from Zimbabwe (Annually)- Millions*Source: ZimStats/Equity Axis ResearchTransport patterns further reinforce the regional character of Zimbabwe’s mobility system. Road travel accounted for 74% of all arrivals, over- whelmingly dominating air travel at 26% . This heavy reliance on road transport underscores the importance of neighbouring countries in shaping migration flows. Key entry points such as Forbes, Beitbridge, and Victoria Falls Road collectively handled the majority of traffic, reflecting strong economic and social ties with countries like South Africa, Mozambique, and Zambia.Air travel, however, grew significantly by 42% compared to the fourth quarter of 2024 . This surge suggests a gradual recovery in high- er-value mobility segments, including tourism, business, and diaspora travel. The dominance of Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport and Victoria Falls Airport in handling air arrivals indicates a concentration of international con- nectivity in a few strategic nodes. From a policy standpoint, this raises questions about spatial inequality in infrastructure and the need to decentralise access to global mobility networks.The purpose-of-visit data provides deeper insight into the economic logic of migration. Holiday travel remains dominant, but its modest growth of 3% contrasts with sharper increases in business and education visits. Meanwhile, shopping-related visits declined by 10%, sug- gesting shifts in informal trade dynamics and possibly reduced purchasing power among regional visitors. This decline may also reflect changes in exchange rate conditions and cross-border price differentials, which tradition- ally drive shopping tourism.Another critical dimension is the geographical origin of visitors. The overwhelming majority of visitors came from within Africa, particularly South Africa, Mozambique, and Zambia. This regional concentration highlights Zimbabwe’s embeddedness within Southern African mobility systems. It also underscores the importance of regional policy coordination, especially in areas such as border management, trade facilitation, and migration governance.However, the relatively limited inflows from other regions, such as Europe, Asia, and the Americas, point to missed opportunities in diver- sifying Zimbabwe’s international engagement. While there are modest contributions from these regions, they remain small compared to African inflows. This imbalance reflects both structural constraints, such as limited global connectivity Fourth Quarter Border Flows Migration Pressures Zimbabwe TransformationZ

*To Page 13The AXiS CCXI Friday 10 Apr 2026 12imbabwe's pension fund administrators generated total income of US$15.97 million in 2024 and incurred total expen- diture of US$17.15 million, producing a collec- tive net loss of US$1.18 million according to the latest IPEC report. This is the sector that profes- sionally administers the retirement savings of nearly one million Zimbabweans across 967 registered pension funds. Its primary revenue source is administration fees charged to the funds it manages, while its largest cost is staff, which consumed US$119.8 million in ZWG terms, equivalent to approxi- mately 39% of the sector's total expenses, followed by other staff costs at 17% and com- mission at 8%. The sector is not a charitable enterprise, but exists to generate commercial returns from the management of pension assets. A sector that cannot cover its costs from its fee income is either underpriced relative to its service delivery costs, overloaded with expense structures that the current scale of assets under management does not justify, or operating in a market where the erosion of member balances through inflation and contribution arrears has shrunk the asset base from which fees are earned to a level that no longer supports the overhead the administrators have built. All three explanations contain truth, and none of them is reassuring for the members whose retirement savings pay for a management layer that is itself running at a loss.The income decomposition reveals a structural depen- dency that compounds the problem. Of the US$15.97 million in administrator income, US$7.82 million, representing 49% of the total, came from administration fees charged directly to pen- sion funds. A further US$3.64 million came from investment income earned on the admin- istrators' own asset bases. The remaining income was sourced from fair value gains, sundry income, and other non-recurring items. The fee income that represents the core commercial justification for the sector's existence, the money paid by pension funds for the service of managing them, is not sufficient to cover the sector's costs even before investment income and other supplementary sources are counted. This means the administrators are, in aggre- gate, charging enough in fees to cover less than half of their own operating expenses and relying on their own investment portfolios and non-re- curring items to make up the difference. When non-recurring items diminish or investment returns fall, the sector's financial position deteri- orates, and the pressure to increase fee charges to funds, at the direct expense of member balances, intensifies.The expense tables at the back of the IPEC report are where the most revealing numbers hide. The regulator sets clear limits for what pension fund administrators can charge: admin- istration fees must not exceed 5% of contribu- tions, board costs must not exceed 0.5%, and total administration expenses must not exceed 15%. These ceilings exist for one reason, to stop the cost of running a pension fund from consuming the contributions that workers made to build their retirements. What the data shows is that the ceilings are being ignored at a scale that should have triggered enforcement action long before this report was published. The Annexure 3 data shows that compliance with these thresholds is not universal and in some cases is not even approximate. The BOC fund administered by Minerva shows administration fees of 252.86% of contributions and total administration expenses of 557.15% of contri- butions. The ZIMPLOW fund shows 125.01% in administration fees and 215.06% in total admin- istration expenses. The DATLABS fund shows 42.85% in fees. The TIPF fund administered by First Mutual Life records the most extreme figure in the entire table: administration fees of 539.50% of contributions and total administra- tion expenses of 792.12% of contributions.These ratios require careful contextual reading. A fund with very low contributions in a given period, whether because the employer is in default or because the membership has con- tracted sharply, will produce very high fee ratios even if the absolute fee amount is modest and the fee itself is within regulatory caps in abso- lute terms. The BOC Zimbabwe fund, which likely has a small and declining active member- ship, may have a low absolute contribution base against which the fee denominator is calculated, producing a very high percentage even if the fee itself is not abusive in nominal terms. ZPensions in PerilThe Numbers Inside IPEC's Latest Industry Report*From Page 11 and investment attractiveness, and policy gaps in positioning Zimbabwe as a competitive destination beyond the region.The long-term data presented in the appendices adds an important historical perspective. Total arrivals increased significantly from 4.76 million in 2024 to over 5.05 million in 2025, indicating a broader recovery in mobility following earlier disruptions. However, this recovery is uneven and masks underlying volatility. For instance, the sharp fluctuations observed between 2020 and 2022 highlight the system’s vulnerability to external shocks, particularly global crises.One of the most striking insights from the long-term data is that 2025 records the highest total arrivals in the observed period (2006–2025). This suggests that Zimbabwe’s migration system is not contracting but rather transforming. The key issue is not the volume of movement, but its composition and underlying drivers. Increasingly, migration appears to be shaped by economic survival strategies, region- al integration, and emerging digital and informal systems that operate alongside formal struc- tures.Despite these insights, there are notable data limitations that constrain deeper analysis. The absence of immigrant data due to the transition to electronic systems is particularly significant. Without this information, it is difficult to assess Zimbabwe’s position as a destination for long-term settlement and labour migration. This gap highlights the importance of strengthening statistical systems to support evidence-based policymaking.From a policy perspective, several key implica- tions emerge. First, the decline in returning resi- dents suggests the need to reassess domestic economic conditions and diaspora engagement strategies. If fewer Zimbabweans are returning, this may indicate declining confidence in local opportunities. Policymakers must therefore focus on creating conditions that encourage return migration, including job creation, invest- ment incentives, and institutional stability.Second, the growth in business and education travel presents an opportunity to reposition Zim- babwe within regional and global value chains. This requires targeted investments in infrastruc- ture, regulatory reform, and skills development to attract and retain high-value visitors. Without such interventions, these emerging trends may remain marginal rather than transformative.Third, the dominance of regional mobility calls for stronger integration with neighbouring coun- tries. This includes harmonising border proce- dures, improving transport corridors, and lever- aging regional trade agreements to facilitate movement. At the same time, there is a need to diversify beyond the region by enhancing inter- national connectivity and promoting Zimbabwe as a destination for tourism, investment, and education.Finally, the data points to a broader structural shift in migration dynamics. Zimbabwe’s mobili- ty system is increasingly characterised by circu- lar, short-term, and economically driven move- ments rather than permanent migration. This reflects both constraints and opportunities. On one hand, it indicates persistent economic chal- lenges that push individuals to seek opportuni- ties elsewhere. On the other hand, it creates a dynamic system of exchanges that can support trade, knowledge transfer, and regional integra- tion if properly managed.In conclusion, the fourth quarter migration data for 2025 reveals a system in transition. While overall mobility is increasing, its patterns are becoming more complex and uneven. The chal- lenge for policymakers is to move beyond descriptive statistics and engage with the deeper structural forces shaping migration. This requires a coordinated approach that integrates economic policy, regional cooperation, and institutional reform. Only then can migration be transformed from a symptom of economic pres- sure into a driver of sustainable development.

The AXiS CCXI Friday 10 Apr 2026 13WThe regulatory thresholds are designed precisely to protect against this dynamic: a fund with low contributions should not be paying administration fees that consume multiples of its inflow, regardless of the fee's absolute amount. The TIPF figure of 539% is the clearest example of a fund where, whatever the explanation for the contribution level, the administrative cost structure is consuming inflows at a rate that cannot possibly be building member wealth. A member whose contributions are being admin- istered at a cost of 5.4 times the contribution amount is not accumulating a pension. The accumulation is going in the wrong direction.The administrator sector carries a market con- centration risk that the IPEC data exposes but does not directly name as a systemic concern. Of the 799 insured pension funds in Zimbabwe, Old Mutual Life administers 347, representing 43% of the entire insured fund market. First Mutual Life administers a further 134, or 17%. Zimnat Life administers 166, or 21%. These three institutions collectively administer 81% of all insured funds. The top five administrators, including ZB Life at 108 funds and Fidelity Life at 37, account for approximately 92% of insured funds under administration. The independent administrators, by contrast, Minerva with 64 self-administered funds, Bright Employee Benefits with 27, and Comarton with 23, serve the self-administered fund segment that accounts for approximately 19% of total industry assets. This concentration is not inher- ently problematic, but it creates a specific sys- temic risk: the financial health of Zimbabwe's pension fund administration market is over- whelmingly dependent on the operational and financial stability of three life assurance compa- nies. If any one of these three institutions faces financial difficulty, operational disruption, or regulatory intervention, the pension administra- tion of hundreds of thousands of Zimbabwe's formal sector workers is exposed to a service continuity risk that no alternative administrator can absorb at short notice.The administrator sector's US$1.18 million collective loss, when distributed across 14 administrators with significantly different market shares, does not fall evenly. An administrator with 347 funds under management carries a very different cost structure and a very different exposure to the contribution arrears problem than one managing 23 funds. Old Mutual Life's administration income for 2024, at ZWG 34.38 million in administration fees, was the largest of any administrator in the sector. Its proportion of foreign currency component to total administra- tion fees was 16%, the lowest among major administrators and significantly below the sector average. This means Old Mutual's fee book is predominantly ZWG-denominated in a market where the USD component of contributions is growing, creating a currency composition mis- match between where the fees are earned and where the costs, particularly staff costs in the competitive labour market for qualified pension administrators, are increasingly denominated.The most direct human evidence that Zimba- bwe's pension system is failing to preserve value for its members sits in a single line of the commutations data: 41% of all commutations approved during 2024 were approved on the grounds that the preserved amount was inade- quate to purchase the minimum monthly annui- ty. A commutation on these grounds means a pensioner who reached retirement, or a member who left employment and preserved their benefit, accumulated so little in their pen- sion fund that the fund cannot use their balance to buy a monthly pension payment of even the minimum required amount. The system cannot generate a monthly income stream from the accumulated savings, so it pays the whole amount as a lump sum instead. This is the end-state of a pension system that has failed its members: not that the benefit is denied, but that the benefit is so small it cannot function as a pension.The 41% figure means that of every ten commu- tations approved by IPEC in 2024, four were approved not because the member chose to take a lump sum, but because their savings were structurally insufficient to produce a monthly pension at all. Building purposes accounted for 32% of commutations, school fees for 23%, and medical for 4%. Even the 32% building and 23% school fees commuta- tions represent members extracting accumulat- ed retirement savings to meet immediate hous- ing and education costs that their current income cannot cover, a pattern that reflects not just pension system failure but broader eco- nomic circumstances where formal sector work- ers cannot meet major household expenditure from earnings alone. Taken together, the com- mutation data describes a pension membership that is either cashing out insufficient savings because the system cannot convert them into a pension, or cashing out adequate savings because the immediate economic pressures of housing, education, and health are more urgent than the deferred income that the pension is designed to provide.There is a dimension of the pension system's failure that predates 2024 and has remained unresolved through every annual IPEC report for years. Of the 967 registered pension funds, 478 are inactive. Of those 478 inactive funds, 372 are formally earmarked for dissolution but cannot be wound up because the government's pre-2009 compensation exercise, which was mandated to compensate members whose pen- sion balances were destroyed by the Zimbabwe dollar hyperinflation of 2007 to 2009, has not been finalised. These 372 funds exist in a regu- latory and administrative suspended state. They carry liabilities to members whose claims were formally acknowledged by government man- date. Those claims have not been paid. The members, many of whom are now elderly or deceased, or whose families are the surviving beneficiaries, are waiting for compensation from a process that has been running for over fifteen years without resolution.Every year these 372 funds remain on the IPEC register, they consume administrative resourc- es, occupy regulatory attention, and represent an acknowledged liability that the government has not discharged. The number 372 has appeared in consecutive IPEC annual reports without meaningful movement. It is not a prob- lem being solved. It is a problem being reported. The members behind those 372 funds repre- sent the most complete expression of what pen- sion system failure looks like in Zimbabwe, their savings were destroyed by hyperinflation, gov- ernment acknowledged the destruction, govern- ment mandated compensation, and govern- ment has not delivered it. The system that recorded the loss, mandated the remedy, and failed to execute the remedy is the same system that now manages US$2.26 billion in assets on behalf of the next generation of retirees and presents that figure as evidence of a healthy and growing industry.The US$2.26 billion headline asset figure that frames Zimbabwe's pension industry as a pros- perous and growing sector rests on a founda- tion that the liquidity profile of those assets does not support. Investment properties represent 47% of total assets at US$1.06 billion. Quoted equities represent 21% at US$464 million. Together these two asset classes, both of which require market transactions to convert to cash, account for 68% of total industry assets. The remaining 32% includes cash and money market investments, prescribed assets, unquot- ed equities, loans, and the contribution arrears receivable that the state employers discussed above have not remitted. The industry can cred- ibly claim to be worth US$2.26 billion on a balance sheet basis. It cannot credibly claim to be able to pay US$2.26 billion to its members in any period shorter than several years of man- aged asset disposal, and even that disposal would be conducted in a market where selling US$1.06 billion of Zimbabwean investment property simultaneously would depress prices significantly below current book values.The prescribed assets shortfall, at 12% against a regulatory minimum of 20%, is a consequence of this asset composition. To reach 20%, the industry would need to sell other assets and buy prescribed instruments. Selling property or equities crystallises gains into taxable income and potentially depresses the asset valuations that make the balance sheet look healthy. The prescribed assets minimum is therefore not simply a compliance target. It is a structural rebalancing requirement that the industry cannot easily achieve without damaging the reported asset base that its compliance status and member confidence rest upon. This is the trap that the paper wealth creates: an industry that looks wealthy on a balance sheet, cannot easily liquidate that wealth without destroying it, is in breach of its prescribed assets minimum because doing so would require selling the assets that sustain its reported value, and simultaneously has 41% of its retiring members taking lump sums because their savings are too small to generate a monthly income. The distance between the US$2.26 billion headline and the lived experience of Zimbabwe's pension system members is the most important analyti- cal gap in the entire IPEC report, and the fee ratios, the administrator losses, and the com- mutation data are its most honest measure- ment.*From Page 12

WThe AXiS CCXI Friday 10 Apr 2026 14here is a moment in every dataset where numbers stop behaving like statistics and start telling a story about how people are actually living. Zimbabwe’s fourth quarter crime report for 2025 is one of those moments. On the surface, it is a compilation of police records. Look closer, and it becomes a mirror reflecting economic strain, institutional pressure, and the quiet reordering of everyday life.The country recorded 426,946 offences between October and December 2025, marking a 12.1 percent increase from the previous quar- ter. That jump is not just a statistical uptick. It signals acceleration. Crime is not rising slowly. It is gathering momentum. The national crime rate climbed to 2,812.7 per 100,000 people, reinforcing the sense that insecurity is becom- ing more deeply embedded in the social fabric.To understand what is happening, it is neces- sary to move beyond totals and examine struc- ture. The largest category of crime falls under acts against public safety and state security, accounting for 280,667 cases. This category is often misunderstood because it includes non-in- jurious traffic violations, which dominate the figures. Still, its scale reveals something import- ant about enforcement patterns. The state is most visible where regulation is easiest to apply. Roads become sites of governance. Everyday movement becomes a point of control.This raises a deeper question. Is the increase in recorded crime driven by actual criminal activity or by intensified enforcement in specific areas. When traffic violations dominate, the line between public safety and revenue enforce- ment begins to blur. The data suggests that while serious crime matters, the system is heav- ily weighted toward regulatory offences that are easier to detect and process.Shift the focus to crimes that directly affect households, and the picture sharpens. Property related offences reached 51,464 cases, with theft alone accounting for 37,680 incidents. Theft is not random. It is economic. It reflects a society where survival strategies are increas- ingly informal and sometimes unlawful. When theft dominates the crime landscape, it often points to declining purchasing power, unem- ployment, and widening inequality.Burglary, at 8,348 cases, reinforces this narra- tive. Homes are no longer fully secure spaces. They are part of the economic battlefield. What people accumulate becomes a target, especial- ly in environments where formal income opportunities are limit- ed. Crime here is not only about lawlessness. It is about redistri- bution under pressure.Violent crime adds another layer. There were 44,830 cases of acts causing harm to persons, with assaults and threats making up nearly 30,000 of these. This is where economic stress spills into social relationships. Violence becomes interpersonal rather than purely criminal. It shows up in disputes, domestic tensions, and community con- flicts. These are not isolated incidents. They are symptoms of strain within the social struc- ture.Sexual violence, with 3,919 recorded cases, carries a differ- ent weight. These are among the most underreported crimes globally, which means the actual scale is likely higher. The presence of such numbers in official records points to both persistence and increased reporting. Either way, it highlights vulnerability, especially among women and young people, and raises questions about protection systems and justice delivery.Drug related offences reached 11,926 cases, showing a noticeable presence of substance use and trade within the broader crime ecosys- tem. Drug activity often intersects with econom- ic distress and youth unemployment. It creates parallel economies that operate outside formal structures. These economies can provide income, but they also deepen cycles of depen- dency and insecurity.The geography of crime reveals even more. Harare stands out dramatically, with a crime rate of 6,195.3 per 100,000 people, more than double the national average. This is not surpris- ing. Urban areas concentrate both opportunity and inequality. Harare is the economic centre, which makes it a magnet for migration, informal activity, and also crime. High-density, high-pres- sure environments tend to produce higher crime rates.Other provinces such as Bulawayo, Masvingo, and Matabeleland South also recorded crime rates above the national average. These patterns suggest that crime is not evenly distrib- uted. It follows economic corridors, urbanisation trends, and infrastructure networks. Areas with more movement and more economic activity also experience more criminal activity.Gender dynamics within crime data are equally revealing. Of the 367,557 people charged, 88 percent were male. The male crime rate was nearly eight times higher than that of females. This is consistent with global patterns, though the scale here is striking. It reflects social expectations, economic roles, and exposure to risk. Men are more likely to be involved in public economic activity, which also increases their exposure to both opportunity and conflict.The increase in the number of people charged, rising to 367,557, also suggests greater enforcement capacity or pressure to act. The charge rate climbed significantly, indicating that more offences are not only being recorded but also processed. This could reflect improved policing systems, but it could also point to reac- tive strategies rather than preventive ones.One of the most important aspects of this dataset is what it does not capture. The report relies on police recorded crime. This excludes unre- ported incidents and cases not classified as crimes by authorities. In many societies, espe- cially where trust in institutions is mixed, under- reporting is significant. This means the actual crime landscape is likely broader than what is visible in the data.There is also a policy implication hidden in plain sight. A large share of crime falls under catego- ries that are easier to regulate rather than those that are harder to prevent. Traffic violations, regulatory breaches, and minor offences domi- nate. Meanwhile, structural drivers such as unemployment, inequality, and urban conges- tion remain less directly addressed within the crime framework. This creates a feedback loop. Economic pressure increases the likelihood of crime. Crime then requires more enforcement. Enforcement focuses on visible and manage- able offences. The deeper causes remain intact, allowing the cycle to continue. Breaking this loop requires moving beyond policing and into economic policy.Crime in this context becomes an economic indicator. When theft rises, it signals declining household security. When drug offences increase, it points to informal coping mecha- nisms. When assault cases grow, it reflects social strain. Each category is not just a legal issue. It is a window into lived experience.There is also a cost dimension that often goes unnoticed. Crime imposes both direct and indi- rect costs. Households spend more on security. Businesses face higher risks. Government allo- cates resources to policing and justice systems instead of social services. Over time, this shifts the structure of the economy itself, making it more defensive and less productive. The fourth quarter spike is particularly important because it captures year end dynamics. This period often sees increased economic activity, movement, and consumption. It also brings heightened financial pressure, especially for households managing seasonal expenses. The data suggests that these pressures translate into higher levels of both opportunistic and stress driven crime.Looking ahead, the challenge is not simply to reduce crime numbers. It is to understand what they represent. Zimbabwe’s crime data is not just about law enforcement. It is about econom- ic resilience, social cohesion, and institutional effectiveness. Policies that focus only on policing will address symptoms rather than causes.A more effective approach would integrate crime analysis with economic planning. This means targeting youth unem- ployment, strengthening social protection systems, improving urban planning, and enhancing community level interventions. It also means investing in data systems that capture not just reported crime but also underly- ing risk factors. There is a tendency to view crime as a breakdown of order. In reality, it often reflects a reordering of how people survive, interact, and adapt. Zimbabwe’s fourth quarter data does not simply show a rise in crime. It reveals a society navigating pressure, adjusting to constraints, and finding ways, both legal and illegal, to cope.Fourth Quarter Crime SurgeEconomic Pressures Zimbabwe RealityT

The AXiS CCXI Friday 10 Apr 2026 15imbabwe’s paradox of asset-rich but liquidity-poor is no longer just a structural curiosity but is becoming a defining con- straint on future growth. Vast amounts of wealth sit embedded in unmortgaged residential and commercial property yet this wealth remains economically inert. At face value, high outright ownership signals resilience and a cultural pref- erence for tangible assets. But at a systems level it reveals something deeper which is a breakdown in trust between property owners and financial intermediation mechanisms. The result is a shadow balance sheet massive in scale but disconnected from productive invest- ment channels. This observation was recently made by local investment facilitator, Investor Hosting Centre (IHC), which highlighted that Zimbabwe has a large pool of untapped capital in the form of unmortgaged property thereby limiting economic growth.Why has this disconnection persisted? The answer lies in Zimbabwe’s monetary history. Repeated currency reforms, hyperinflation episodes and policy reversals have fundamen- tally altered risk perceptions. Property owners have learnt often painfully that financial instru- ments can rapidly lose value, while land and buildings tend to preserve it. In this environ- ment, mortgages ceased to be seen as wealth-building tools and instead became perceived as potential traps. Banks on the other hand have faced capital erosion, non-perform- ing loans, and regulatory uncertainty, limiting their appetite to lend long-term. This mutual distrust has effectively frozen a critical feedback loop between assets and capital formation.But here is the central question, what does it mean for an economy when its largest store of domestic wealth cannot be mobilized? It means slower infrastructure development, constrained SME financing and a persistent reliance on external capital. More importantly, it means Zim- babwe is under-leveraging its own internal capacity for growth. If even a fraction of this dormant property wealth were unlocked, the multiplier effects could be transformative. Hous- ing supply could expand, urban regeneration could accelerate and entrepreneurial activity could scale beyond subsistence levels.Yet unlocking this value is not simply a technical exercise but fundamentally a confidence prob- lem. Financial innovation without institutional trust will fail. So, the future conversation must begin with credibility. How can financial systems be redesigned to align with the lived experienc- es of Zimbabwean asset holders? Traditional mortgage models which rely on long-term currency stability may not be sufficient. Instead, hybrid instruments like indexed loans, asset-backed securities tied to stable bench- marks or even tokenized property shares could provide more flexible pathways.Consider this, what if property owners could leverage their assets without relinquishing con- trol or exposing themselves to currency risk? This is where financial engineering meets behavioural economics. Products that allow partial collateralization, short-duration expo- sure, or returns linked to hard currencies could bridge the trust gap. The question is not wheth- er capital exists for it clearly does, but whether the mechanisms to safely deploy it can be credi- bly constructed.The role of currency cannot be overstated in this equation. The dominance of the US dollar as a stabilizing force reflects a rational market response to volatility. It has become both a unit of account and a store of value, anchoring expectations in an otherwise uncertain mone- tary environment. However, this dollarization also introduces structural constraints. It limits monetary policy flexibility, reduces seigniorage benefits and can create liquidity mismatches in a domestic banking system that operates under partial control of foreign currency flows.So, what happens if Zimbabwe moves toward a mono-currency system in the future? The lifting of the 2030 deadline introduces ambiguity but also opportunity. A successful transition to a mono-currency would require more than policy declaration. It would demand sustained macro- economic discipline, transparency and institu- tional independence. Without these, any new local currency risks repeating the cycle of depreciation and loss of confidence.Here lies a critical tension. Property wealth is denominated in real terms while financial sys- tems operate in nominal terms. Bridging this gap requires a currency framework that can preserve value over time. If a credible mono-currency emerges, it could reignite mort- gage markets and re-anchor financial intermedi- ation. But if credibility remains fragile, the econ- omy may continue to operate in a hybrid state where property is valued in stable external currencies while transactions occur in a mix of local and foreign units.This hybrid reality may in fact define Zimba- bwe’s medium-term future. Rather than forcing a binary choice between dollarization and mono-currency, policymakers could embrace a transitional architecture. Multi-currency sys- tems, if well-managed, can provide stability while allowing gradual rebuilding of confidence in local instruments. The key is consistency because policy reversals are far more damag- ing than imperfect policies.Another dimension worth exploring is the role of technology. Could digital platforms enable more efficient valuation, securitization and trading of property-backed assets? Imagine a system where property owners can tokenize fractions of their assets and sell them to investors, creating liquidity without traditional mortgages. Such models are already emerging globally and could be adapted to Zimbabwe’s context. However, this again circles back to trust as digital innova- tion cannot substitute for regulatory credibility.Let’s also challenge a common assumption that unlocking property wealth automatically leads to productive investment. This is not guaranteed. Without clear investment pipelines, capital can flow into speculative activities, reinforcing asset bubbles rather than generating real economic output. Therefore, any strategy to mobilize property wealth must be paired with targeted investment opportunities like housing projects, infrastructure bonds, SME financing platforms that can absorb and effectively deploy this capi- tal.What then should industry players and policy- makers prioritize? First, rebuilding trust in finan- cial institutions through transparency, capital- ization and consistent regulation. Second, developing innovative financial instruments that align with local risk perceptions. Third, maintain- ing currency stability whether through dollariza- tion, a credible mono-currency or a managed hybrid system. And fourth, creating clear path- ways for investment that can translate mobilized capital into tangible economic outcomes.As we look to the future, one conclusion becomes unavoidable. Zimbabwe’s growth con- straints are less about the absence of capital and more about the architecture of its deploy- ment. The country does not need to ‘find’ wealth but to ‘activate’ it. Property, in this sense, is not just a static asset but a latent engine of growth waiting to be integrated into the financial system.But integration will not happen automatically. It will require deliberate design, institutional cour- age and above all, consistency. The lessons of the past like hyperinflation, currency collapses and bank failures are not just historical foot- notes. These are active forces shaping present behaviour. Ignoring them would be a mistake. Instead, the future must be built with these reali- ties in mind, crafting solutions that are not only theoretically sound but also psychologically acceptable to market participants.So, the real question is not whether Zimbabwe can unlock its idle property wealth, it can. The question is whether it can build a system that people trust enough to participate in. And in an economy where trust has been repeatedly tested, that may be the most valuable currency of all.Unlocking Dormant WealthTurning Zimbabwe’s Idle Property into Productive CapitalZ

The AXiS CCXI Friday 10 Apr 2026 16he Gallup State of the Global Workplace 2026 report offers a revealing and some- what sobering assessment of labour con- ditions across Sub-Saharan Africa, highlighting structural weaknesses in employee engage- ment, job quality and overall wellbeing. These findings are particularly relevant for Zimbabwe where economic recovery efforts depend not only on macroeconomic stability but also on the productivity and resilience of its workforce. A central insight from the report is that employ- ment alone does not guarantee wellbeing or economic progress. Across the region, only 19% of employees are engaged at work, while 63% are not engaged and 18% are actively disengaged. At the same time, just 18% of people are classified as thriving in their lives, with an overwhelming 73% considered to be struggling. This disconnect between employ- ment and wellbeing suggests that many jobs in the region, including in Zimbabwe, are low-qual- ity, insecure, or insufficiently rewarding.The emotional dimension of work further rein- forces this concern. The report shows that 46% of individuals experience daily stress, while 25% report anger and 28% report both sadness and loneliness. These are not marginal figures they point to a systemic issue in how work is experienced across Sub-Saharan Africa. For Zimbabwe, where economic volatility, inflation and job insecurity are persistent challenges, these emotional pressures are likely even more pronounced. Workers operating in uncertain conditions often face chronic stress, which directly undermines productivity, decision-mak- ing and long-term planning. This highlights the need to treat workplace wellbeing not as a secondary social concern but as a core eco- nomic priority.Another key finding is the low level of confi- dence in labour markets. Only 36% of workers in Sub-Saharan Africa believe it is a good time to find a job, significantly below the global average of 52%. This lack of confidence reflects limited formal job creation, skills mis- matches and weak economic diversification. In Zimbabwe, these issues are compounded by macroeconomic instability and a persistent reliance on the informal sector. When workers perceive limited opportunities, they are less likely to invest in skills development or remain in the domestic labour market, contributing to high levels of emigration among skilled professionals. This ‘brain drain’ further weakens the country’s productive capacity and institu- tional strength.The report also emphasizes the strong link between employee engagement and productivi- ty. Higher engagement levels are associated with better performance, increased innovation, and improved economic outcomes. This has important implications for Zimbabwe’s develop- ment strategy. Economic growth is often framed in terms of capital investment, infrastructure and policy reform, but the report makes clear that human factors such as motivation, satisfaction, and emotional wellbeing are equally critical. A disen- gaged workforce cannot fully utilize available resources, meaning that even well-designed economic policies may fall short of their poten- tial impact.Several structural patterns identified in Sub-Sa- haran Africa are directly applicable to Zimba- bwe. First, employment does not necessarily translate into improved living standards, particu- larly in contexts dominated by informal work. A large portion of Zimbabwe’s workforce operates in informal markets, where job security is mini- mal, incomes are unstable and opportunities for advancement are limited. This environment makes sustained engagement difficult, as work- ers are primarily focused on survival rather than productivity or innovation. Second, the report notes that managers tend to have higher engagement levels than non-managerial employees, suggesting that leadership quality plays an important role in shaping workplace experiences. This indicates that improving man- agement practices could have a meaningful impact on overall workforce engagement in Zimbabwe.From these findings, several important lessons emerge. One of the most critical is the need to prioritize job quality alongside job creation. While expanding employment opportunities remains essential, the nature of those jobs mat- ters just as much. Policies should aim to promote stable, fairly compensated and mean- ingful work, particularly through the formaliza- tion of small and medium-sized enterprises and the development of higher-value industries. Without improvements in job quality, increases in employment may not translate into better wellbeing or productivity.Another key lesson is the importance of invest- ing in leadership and management capacity. Since managers exhibit higher levels of engagement, they can play a crucial role in fostering more positive and productive work environments. Training programs, leadership development initiatives and organizational reforms could help improve management quali- ty across both the public and private sectors in Zimbabwe. Better leadership can enhance com- munication, increase employee motivation and create a stronger sense of purpose within orga- nizations.Addressing workplace wellbeing is also essen- tial. The high levels of stress, sadness and lone- liness reported across the region indicate that many workers are operating under significant psychological strain. In Zimbabwe, where eco- nomic pressures are intense, interventions such as mental health support, improved working conditions and policies that promote work-life balance could have a substantial impact. Reducing stress is not only beneficial for individ- uals but also for businesses and the broader economy as it can lead to higher productivity and lower absenteeism.Strengthening confidence in the labour market is another priority. When workers believe that opportunities are available, they are more likely to invest in skills, remain engaged in their jobs and contribute to economic growth. Zimbabwe can improve labour market confidence by enhancing transparency, supporting job-match- ing platforms and fostering entrepreneurship. Encouraging innovation and creating pathways for young people to enter the workforce are particularly important in this regard.Finally, reducing informality is crucial for improv- ing both engagement and productivity. Formal employment provides greater stability, access to benefits and opportunities for career progres- sion, all of which contribute to higher levels of engagement. Policies that simplify business registration, reduce regulatory burdens and provide incentives for formalization could help shift more workers into the formal economy. Over time, this transition would strengthen the link between employment and wellbeing.In conclusion, the State of the Global Work- place 2026 highlights a fundamental chal- lenge for Sub-Saharan Africa, the need to improve not just the quantity of jobs but their quality and the experience of work itself. For Zimbabwe, this means recognizing that eco- nomic recovery depends as much on human factors as on financial or structural reforms. By focusing on employee engagement, job quality, leadership and wellbeing, Zimbabwe can unlock higher levels of productivity and build a more resilient and inclusive economy.TWorking but StrugglingWhat Sub-Saharan Africa’s Workforce Tells Us About Zim’s Future

The AXiS CCXI Friday 10 Apr 2026 18*To Page 22marketsn the full year ended 31 December 2025, Rainbow Tourism Group (RTG)’s financial performance reflected a company in transi- tion, one that is aggressively pursuing growth through diversification and acquisitions, while simultaneously confronting the financial strains that often accompany such expansion. The Group delivered a solid top-line performance, with revenue rising 13% year-on-year to US$50.3 million from US$44.4 million in 2024.The growth in revenue was underpinned by a combination of organic improvements in occu- pancy and pricing, and strategic investments that expanded the Group’s geographic and operational footprint. However, beneath this encouraging revenue trajectory lies a more complex financial narrative, particularly around liquidity, leverage, and capital allocation disci- pline.Nonetheless, a key highlight of RTG’s 2025 performance was the strong recovery in demand across its hospitality portfolio. Occu- pancy improved from 54% to 57%, while the average daily rate increased from US$102 to US$109. This dual improvement in both volume and pricing power drove a 13% increase in reve- nue per available room (RevPAR) to US$62, a sign of strengthening fundamentals in the Group’s core hotel operations. Importantly, this recovery aligns with the broader rebound in international tourism, which materially benefited RTG. Foreign currency earnings surged by 28% to US$24.1 million, providing a crucial buffer against potential local currency volatility and enhancing revenue quality.From a segmental perspective, RTG maintained a well-diversified revenue base. Rooms reve- nue contributed 40.6% of total revenue (up slightly from 39.8% in 2024), while food, bever- ages, and conferencing remained the largest segment at 51.3%, albeit slightly lower than the prior year’s 52.8%. Other operating activities contributed 8.1%, reflecting gradual expansion in ancillary services. This balanced mix high- lights RTG’s ability to capture value across mul- tiple customer touchpoints, particularly in con- ferencing and events, which remain key reve- nue drivers in Zimbabwe’s hospitality sector.The Group’s expansion strategy was a defining feature of its 2025 performance. Total assets rose sharply by 28% to US$82.7 million, driven by the acquisition of Montclair Hotel and Casino in Nyanga, MSK House in Cape Town, and Batoka Safaris in Victoria Falls. These acquisi- tions contributed approximately 8% to total revenue, demonstrating early-stage integration success. Furthermore, RTG invested US$13.4 million in acquisitions and refurbishments, including significant upgrades to flagship prop- erties such as Zambezi River Lodge and Victo- ria Falls Rainbow Hotel. These investments are aimed at enhancing product quality and posi- tioning the Group to capture higher-value inter- national tourists.Despite these positive operational develop- ments, RTG’s financial position reveals growing pressure on liquidity and leverage. The Group’s current ratio declined from above 1 to below 1, indicating that short-term liabilities now exceed short-term assets. More concerning is the dete- rioration in cashflow coverage, which fell from over 2x to below 1x, suggesting that operating cash flows are no longer sufficient to comfort- ably meet immediate obligations. This weaken- ing liquidity position introduces execution risk, particularly as the Group continues to pursue capital-intensive projects.The surge in long-term borrowings from US$2.5 million to US$9.9 million further amplifies this risk. With an average borrowing cost of 14% per annum, debt servicing obligations are likely to place significant strain on future cash flows. This level of leverage is particularly notable given the cyclical nature of the hospitality indus- try, which is highly sensitive to macroeconomic conditions, tourism flows, and external shocks. As a result, RTG’s ability to generate consistent RTG Growth Strategy Gains TractionLiquidity Constraints Raise ConcernI

The AXiS CCXI Friday 10 Apr 2026 19*To Page 23roplastics Limited, the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange-listed manufacturer of PVC piping systems and infrastructure prod- ucts, reported revenue of US$22.78 million for the year ended 31 December 2025, an 11% increase on US$20.60 million in 2024. Gross profit grew 23% to US$7.49 million as the com- pany expanded its gross margin from 29.6% to 32.9% through disciplined cost management and pricing. Profit before tax rose 21% to US$1.99 million and profit after tax reached US$1.39 million. Operating cash flow of US$3.28 million was one of the strongest in its financial history, representing a 256% surge on the prior year's US$920,000 and as a result, the board has declared a final dividend of US$0.20 cents per share, a 67% increase on the prior year distribution. By the standards of a ZSE-list- ed manufacturer navigating power disruptions, ZiG liquidity constraints, and a govern- ment-funded project slowdown in the second half, this is a creditable performance.Trade and other receivables grew to US$3.63 illion, against US$2.96 million, an increase of US$667,000 or 22.5% at the total receivables level. Within that total, gross trade receivables specifically, money owed by customers for pipes and fittings already delivered, increased from US$2.47 million to US$3.09 million, a 25% increase against revenue growth of 11%. The direction of that divergence is the diagnostic signal. When trade receivables grow faster than revenue, it means customers are taking longer to pay, or the company is extending more credit to generate the revenue, or both. The allowance for doubtful receivables increased from US$111,000 to US$138,000, a 24% rise that tracks the receivables growth almost exactly and confirms that the company's own credit assessment is identifying higher risk within an expanding debtor book. None of this appears in the income statement as a charge because the net impairment loss on trade receivables for the year was only US$27,371. But the provisioning trend is pointing in the same direction as the receivables growth, and together they describe a customer base that is paying more slowly than it was a year ago.Inventories fell from US$6.67 million to US$5.68 million, a reduction of US$984,000 or 15%, driven primarily by a US$968,000 fall in raw material holdings from US$3.12 million to US$2.15 million. The company is holding signifi- cantly less stock while selling significantly more product. That combination, falling inventories and rising sales, normally produces strong cash conversion. In a well-functioning working capital cycle, goods sell, customers pay, cash arrives, and raw materials are replenished. What the Proplastics balance sheet shows instead is that goods are selling, customers are acknowledg- ing the debt, but cash is not arriving at the rate the sales volume would predict. The US$3.28 million in operating cash generated is genuine and strong, but a portion of the revenue gener- ated in 2025 has not yet converted to cash because the customers who owe it have not yet paid. If those customers are the government infrastructure contractors and quasi-govern- ment entities whose payment obligations the Ministry of Finance has now directed toward ZiG, the receivables book is not just a timing issue, but an early indication of the currency conversion problem that the ZiG payment policy will entrench.The financial statements do not provide a cus- tomer-level breakdown of the receivables book, which is standard practice for a listed manufac- turer and not a disclosure gap specific to Pro- plastics. What the product category tells us is instructive in its own right. Proplastics manufac- tures plastic piping systems whose primary end uses are water reticulation, sanitation, irrigation, and civil construction. These are sectors where the dominant commissioning entities are gov- ernment departments, local authorities, para- statals, and civil engineering contractors work- ing on government-funded programmes. The private sector construction and agricultural irrigation segments also purchase plastic piping, but the scale customers in this product category are structurally connected to public sector infrastructure budgets. The chairman's own disclosure confirms that: the second half of the year saw a slowdown in government-funded projects due to tightening liquidity. A govern- ment project slowdown that reduces new orders simultaneously extends the payment cycle on orders already placed, because the same fiscal tightening that slows new contracting activity also delays payment processing on existing contracts.The implication is that the US$3.09 million trade receivables balance at 31 December 2025 con- tains a meaningful concentration of amounts owed by entities connected to public sector infrastructure programmes at a time when those programmes were experiencing fiscal pressure in the second half. The receivables are not bad debt, the provisioning of US$138,000 against a gross book of US$3.09 million represents a provision rate of only 4.5%, which is conserva- tive and not alarming. But the ageing profile of those receivables, and the proportion connect- ed to government or quasi-government counterProplastics Posts Record Cash FlowZiG Payment Policy Clouds 2026 OutlookP*From Page 22 As a result, RTG’s ability to generate consis- tent and growing EBITDA from its expanded asset base will be critical in determining wheth- er this leverage remains sustainable.Looking ahead, RTG’s prospects hinge on the successful execution of its diversification and integration strategy. The Group’s expansion into regional and international markets, particularly through Batoka Safaris and the redevelopment of MSK House in Cape Town, offers a pathway to more stable and diversified earnings. If man- aged effectively, this geographic spread could reduce reliance on the domestic Zimbabwean market and enhance resilience against local economic volatility.Equally important is RTG’s ability to drive opera- tional efficiency across its portfolio. The current occupancy level of 57% remains below the 65–70% range typically achieved by stronger regional peers. Bridging this gap represents a significant opportunity for margin expansion, given the high fixed-cost nature of hotel opera- tions. Incremental gains in occupancy and pric- ing could therefore translate into disproportion- ate increases in profitability, improving both cash flow generation and debt servicing capaci- ty.In the short-term, management faces a delicate balancing act. The Group must continue invest- ing in its asset base to remain competitive, while simultaneously preserving liquidity and avoiding excessive leverage. Sequencing capital proj- ects such as the Montclair enhancements, Kadoma Hotel refurbishment, and MSK House redevelopment, will be critical. Any misalign- ment between investment timing and cash flow generation could necessitate additional borrow- ing or even an equity raise, which may dilute existing shareholders.Additionally, as a peer comparison, African Sun Limited presents a more conservative financial profile relative to RTG. While both companies operate within Zimbabwe’s hospitality sector and benefit from similar tourism recovery trends while both listed, African Sun has historically taken a more measured approach to expansion, focusing on optimizing existing assets rather than pursuing aggressive acquisition-led growth. This has generally resulted in stronger liquidity metrics and lower leverage levels, albeit sometimes at the expense of slower reve- nue growth. Regional peers in Southern Africa, particularly those operating in more stable eco- nomic environments such as South Africa, often exhibit higher occupancy rates and more predictable cash flows, enabling them to sustain lower borrowing costs and stronger balance sheets. In this context, RTG’s strategy appears higher risk but potentially higher reward, offering greater upside if execution is successful, but with more pronounced downside if financial pressures intensify.

The AXiS CCXI Friday 10 Apr 2026 20*From Page 22 parties, is the information the balance sheet cannot provide without supple- mentary disclosure. What the aggregate numbers confirm is that Proplastics sold US$22.78 million of product in 2025 and collected cash on approximately US$22.1 million of it, leaving US$3.09 million in transit in the trade receivables book at year end. In a stable USD pay- ment environment, those receivables convert to cash in the normal collection cycle. In an environment where govern- ment clients are being migrated to ZiG payment terms, the conversion of those receivables into effective USD purchas- ing power becomes dependent on the parallel market premium at the time of collection.Prepayments within the trade and other receivables note grew from US$267,786 to US$576,365, an increase of US$308,579 or 115%. Prepayments represent amounts the company has paid to suppliers in advance of receiving goods or services. A doubling of prepay- ments at Proplastics is consistent with two possible explanations. The first is that the company paid in advance for raw materials to secure supply ahead of anticipated cost increases, which the chairman's statement partially supports through its disclosure of Middle East conflict risk to the raw material supply chain and its confirmation that sufficient raw materials have been secured in the short term. The second is that suppliers to Proplastics are increasingly demanding advance payment rather than extending credit, which would reflect a general tightening of trade credit conditions in Zimbabwe's manufacturing supply chain. Either explanation has cost implications. If the compa- ny is paying suppliers earlier while collecting from customers later, the net working capital cycle is stretching in both directions simultane- ously, absorbing cash at both ends of the production process. The exceptional operating cash generation of US$3.28 million in 2025 masked this dynamic. If the working capital cycle continues to stretch in 2026 while operat- ing margins face pressure from ZiG payment policy and input cost inflation, the dynamic will become visible in the cash flow statement.The receivables analysis connects directly to the structural constraint that limits Proplastics' ability to diversify its customer base away from the domestic government-linked segment where the payment cycle is lengthening. Export sales represented 2.7% of total turnover in 2025, a proportion the chairman explicitly attri- butes to competitive pressures and the 30% foreign currency surrender requirement. The surrender policy mandates that 30 cents of every dollar earned from exports be converted to ZiG at the official interbank rate, creating a structural cost disadvantage against regional manufacturers who retain 100% of their export revenues in the currency they earned. The con- sequence is a company with competitive prod- uct quality, spare manufacturing capacity, and an established ability to serve regional markets, that cannot economically grow its export book because the policy environment taxes each incremental dollar of export revenue before any operational cost is incurred.The relevance of this to the receivables story is direct. If Proplastics could grow its export reve- nue from 2.7% of turnover toward a material regional market share, it would diversify its cus- tomer base away from the domestic govern- ment-linked segment that is experiencing pay- ment cycle lengthening and toward private sector regional buyers who pay in USD on com- mercially negotiated terms. The receivables book would carry a different risk profile. The currency conversion exposure would be reduced. The dependence on domestic govern- ment infrastructure programme payment cycles would decrease. The 30% surrender policy is therefore not just a profitability question, but a balance sheet composition question. It keeps Proplastics more exposed to the domestic gov- ernment payment cycle than the company's product quality and manufacturing capacity would otherwise require. Every year that export growth is suppressed below its commercial potential by the surrender policy is a year in which the company remains more concentrated in the receivables risk that the FY2025 balance sheet is beginning to show.The cash flow statement provides the final con- firmation of the working capital story the balance sheet has been telling. Net cash generated from operating activities after interest and tax was US$2.65 million. Total investing activities con- sumed US$793,000 in capital expenditure. Total financing activities consumed US$1.86 million in debt repayment and dividend payments. The net movement in cash for the year was a decrease of US$2,983, leaving the closing cash balance essentially unchanged at US$366,000 against the US$357,000 opening balance. A company that generated US$3.28 million in pre-interest, pre-tax operating cash and ended the year with the same cash balance it began with has deployed its operating surplus entirely into debt reduction, capital investment, divi- dends, and working capital absorption. The working capital absorption, the cash tied up in the growing receivables book and the expand- ing prepayments position, does not appear as a distinct line in the abridged results but can be approximated from the difference between operating profit and operating cash. The adjust- ment for working capital changes within the operating cash flow would show the receivables and prepayments build consuming cash that operating profit generated, partially offset by the inventory reduction releasing cash in the other direction.The 2026 working capital dynamics will deter- mine whether the US$2.406 million capex com- mitment and the US$520,000 dividend can be funded from operating cash generation without drawing materially on the secured borrowing facilities the company has carefully preserved. If the receivables book continues to grow faster than revenue because government clients are paying more slowly or converting to ZiG pay- ment terms, the cash conversion cycle will lengthen further. If prepayments remain elevat- ed because raw material supply chain uncer- tainty requires advance procurement, cash will continue to be deployed upstream. The income statement, with its expanding margins and growing profit, will continue to look healthy. The cash flow statement will reveal the real story of whether Proplastics' working capital efficiency can be maintained in an environment where its largest customer segment is being subjected to a payment currency change that the 2025 results do not yet fully reflect.

Cimbabwe Newspapers (1980) Limited, the state-linked media group behind The Herald, The Sunday Mail, Star FM, and ZTN Prime’s latest posted results for the year ended 31 December 2025 have revealed a company in deteriorating on every measurable financial dimension, simultaneously managing a five-year forensic audit and a near-total collapse of senior leadership.In terms of topline performance, revenue fell 15.5% to ZWG 622.1 million from ZWG 736.5 million in 2024, gross profit dropped 26% to ZWG 300.8 million, with the gross margin com- pressing seven percentage points from 55.3% to 48.3%, a clear signal that costs did not fall anywhere near as fast as revenue did. The loss trajectory is where the deterioration becomes acute. The operating loss widened from ZWG 17.3 million to ZWG 74.6 million, more than quadrupling in a single year. The loss before tax grew from ZWG 55.7 million to ZWG 96.3 million. The loss after tax, which was cushioned by a ZWG 12.8 million tax credit, still came in at ZWG 83.5 million, a 284% deterioration from ZWG 21.7 million in 2024. No dividend was declared.Segment Performance: No Division Carrying the GroupThe segment data confirms that the decline is not isolated to one part of the business. News- papers, the group's largest revenue contributor at ZWG 342.8 million, swung from an operating profit of ZWG 9.2 million in 2024 to an operating loss of ZWG 10 million in 2025, a ZWG 19.2 million reversal in a single year. Advertising volumes fell 14% as retail clients shifted bud- gets toward digital platforms that Zimpapers is investing in but has not yet monetised at scale.Commercial printing was the most acute opera- tional crisis in the group, where the revenue collapsed 44% to ZWG 84.1 million from ZWG 152 million, and the division's operating loss widened from ZWG 6.4 million to ZWG 35.1 million. The chairperson attributed this to ageing machinery and stock-outs. A 44% revenue collapse in one year is not an equipment prob- lem, it reflects a near-total loss of customer con- fidence in the division's ability to deliver. Ageing machinery explains the failure; it does not explain the scale of the customer exodus with- out further disclosure. Broadcasting was the only segment showing any improvement, where revenue grew to ZWG 195.2 million and the operating loss narrowed from ZWG 23.1 million to ZWG 17.6 million, driven by 45% growth in radio volumes, though ZTN television volumes fell 35%. Broadcasting is heading in the right direction, but it remains loss-making and is not large enough to offset the deterioration elsewhere.All three divisions are losing money. The group has no profit- able segment to fund the others.The balance sheet carries signals that the income statement under- states. Total liabilities grew 36.8% to ZWG 342 million in a year when revenue fell 15.5%, a compres- sion of the company's financial headroom that is structurally significant. Trade and other pay- ables rose 40% to ZWG 230.4 million. Within that figure, accruals and other payables surged 75.8% from ZWG 80.6 million to ZWG 141.7 million, the largest single working capital movement in the results, and one the notes do not specifically explain. A 75.8% surge in accruals at a company with an active forensic audit and departing executives is a figure that demands explanation the results do not provide.Cash at year end was ZWG 5.4 million, down from ZWG 11.2 million in 2024. The company also carried a new bank overdraft of ZWG 4.6 million, which did not exist in 2024, and net borrowings of ZWG 20.7 million from FBC Bank at 19% per annum, secured against land and buildings. Net operating cash generation fell from ZWG 29.9 million to ZWG 21.1 million, while capital expenditure came in at ZWG 24.6 million. The company generated ZWG 21 million from operations, spent ZWG 24.6 million on assets, and ended the year with ZWG 5.4 million in cash and a new overdraft. The board is conserving working capital because it has to. The question the balance sheet raises is wheth- er the position is already past the point where conservation is straightforward.Against this financial backdrop, Zimpapers lost three of its most senior executives within the financial year and its immediate aftermath. Farai Matanhire, the Finance Director, a market- ing boss Tapuwa Mandimutsira, and Pikirai Deketeke the chief executive officer, all, were dismissed. To address the leadership gap, William Chikoto was appointed chief executive officer, and Prisca Makandwa has been appointed new chief finance officer. The depar- ture of a Group CEO and senior executives within the same financial year, during a period when a forensic audit spanning five years of the company's history is underway, is not a routine directorate change. The Board commissioned a forensic audit cov- ering the period 1 January 2020 to 31 Decem- ber 2024. The review is described in the chair- person's statement as a comprehensive due-dil- igence exercise intended to provide a baseline assessment of operational effectiveness and inform strengthened policies, internal controls, and governance frameworks. Grant Thornton, the group's auditors, have included a formal Emphasis of Matter in their audit opinion refer- encing this forensic audit. An Emphasis of Matter is not a qualification, the FY2025 opinion remains unmodified, but it is a formal mecha- nism through which auditors tell the market that a matter is fundamental to users' understanding of the financial statements. Grant Thornton has told the market that this forensic audit exists, is ongoing, and is significant enough to require direct disclosure.A five-year forensic scope is analytically signifi- cant on its own. A forensic audit is not a routine internal review. It is an independent, evidence-based investigation typically deployed when there are concerns about the accuracy of records, the propriety of transactions, or the effectiveness of controls that a standard audit would not fully address. What the results do not explain is what triggered the review, what preliminary findings have indicated, or why the scope spans five full years. The governance of a well-functioning organisation does not typical- ly require a five-year forensic investigation to strengthen it.Revenue recognition appears as a Key Audit Matter in Grant Thornton's report alongside the forensic audit Emphasis of Matter, indicating that the company's income recording was among the areas of highest audit scrutiny in FY2025. The 75.8% surge in accruals sits in that context.The Digital Transformation NarrativeThe chairperson's statement describes 2025 as the year Zimpapers firmly established itself as Zimbabwe's leading digital-first and mobile-first media organisation. The digital transformation is real in its operational content. The Super Desk model, AI-supported digital newsroom, enhanced audience analytics, and hyperlocal content strategy represent genuine investments producing genuine capabilities. The ZWG 24.6 million capital expenditure programme was partly directed at this infrastructure.What the digital narrative cannot resolve is the financial arithmetic. The newspaper segment, 55% of group revenue, posted an operating loss because advertising fell 14% and costs did not fall proportionately. Digital monetisation has not yet reached the scale needed to offset declining print advertising. The broadcasting division is still loss-making despite revenue growth. The commercial printing division is collapsing for reasons unrelated to the digital strategy and consuming capital the transformation requires. The company is attempting to fund a digital future from a print and printing base that is dete- riorating faster than the digital infrastructure can be built. That transition is financially viable only if the balance sheet, cash position, and gover- nance environment remain stable enough to support the investment cycle. In 2025, none of those three conditions held simultaneously.What the Results Actually DescribeZimpapers enters 2026 with a loss trajectory that has accelerated rather than stabilised, a cash position that leaves minimal margin for operational disruption, and a forensic audit that will eventually produce findings the market has not yet seen.Three executive departures in one financial year. A five-year forensic investigation in prog- ress. An operating loss that more than quadru- pled. A commercial printing division down 44%. ZWG 5.4 million in cash against ZWG 342 million in liabilities. A 75.8% surge in accruals with no specific explanation. No single cause, ageing machinery, advertiser migration to digi- tal, liquidity pressure, accounts for all of this simultaneously. The FY2025 results are not the story of a company navigating a difficult envi- ronment with discipline, but of a company in concurrent financial and governance distress, presented in the language of strategic transfor- mation, and read most clearly not in the chair- person's statement but in the Emphasis of Matter that Grant Thornton placed in the audit opinion.ZimPapers FY2025 PerformanceA Business in Accelerating DeclineZThe AXiS CCXI Friday 10 Apr 2026 20

Volkswagen deal with EV maker Xpeng shows how China tech threatens Western automakersIn 1984, Volkswagen partnered with a Chinese automaker because it was required by Chinese law.Now the German company is partnering with Chinese automakers because it wants to use their technology.Volkswagen Group today maintains the original joint ventures it made with Chinese automakers in those early days of its foray into what has become the world's largest car market. But the fact that it is now relying on firms such as Chi- nese EV maker Xpeng for hardware and software underscore how the balance of power in the automotive industry is shifting toward the companies that produce these now high-value components. Chinese companies are proving they can do it faster, often cheaper, than anyone else.VW Group, which has for much of the last few decades been a top-selling brand in China, has lately struggled to maintain its position.Volkswagen's China profits fell about 45 percent in 2025 — from roughly $2 billion to $1.1 billion. The company said in its annual report that it now faces intense competition from Chinese firms.It is not a unique issue. Essentially every non-Chinese automaker is watching market share erode in the country as homegrown com- panies create vehicles that more directly serve what Chinese customers want. - Ajazeera.Visa launches new AI tools to manage the charge dispute processVisa is launching six new tools using artificial intelligence to modernize the process of disput- ing credit card charges, the company told CNBC exclusively.The digital payments company said the tools are designed to reduce the costs and frustration of \"outdated\" dispute processes for multiple entities involved in the payments process: mer- chants, issuers and acquirers.\"Some of the challenges are these back-office systems are still largely manual,\" Andrew Torre, Visa's president of value-added services, told CNBC. \"We really had to think differently about how we approach this at scale.\"In 2025, Torre said, Visa processed more than 103 million charge disputes globally, marking a 35% increase since 2019.\"Our goal is to streamline this as much as possi- ble,\" Torre said. \"We'd love to be able to see that growth rate come down.\"Visa's new tools are part of a larger push by major banks and financial institutions to incorpo- rate AI into their businesses — both internally and in consumer-facing applications. JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs have both said they're already using AI to hire fewer people. BNY spent $3.8 billion on technology in 2025, or about 19% of its revenue. - Abcnews.Nike shares fall 9% on weak outlook, expect- ed 20% sales decline in ChinaShares of Nike fell in extended trading Tuesday after the retailer warned sales will fall for the rest of the calendar year, led by an expected 20% decline in its key China market during the current quarter.Chief Financial Officer Matt Friend said during the company’s earnings call that Nike expects sales for its current fiscal fourth quarter to drop between 2% and 4%, compared with Wall Street estimates of a 1.9% increase, according to LSEG.For the duration of the calendar year, Friend said, the company expects sales to fall by a low single-digit percentage, led by growth in North America and offset by declines in China. That outlook wasn’t comparable to estimates.Nike beat expectations across the business on both the top and bottom lines for its fiscal third quarter, but its guidance left investors with more questions about how long its turnaround will take. Friend also cautioned that Nike’s guidance was based off of where the global economic picture stands today — and it could change given recent geopolitical volatility.- TheGuard- ian.Mercedes U.S. CEO sets ambitious sales goal despite ‘tougher’ market than anticipat- edMercedes-Benz USA CEO Adam Chamberlain said Tuesday that 2026 is shaping up to be more challenging than expected. “If you look at the market in the first couple of months of the year, the market environment is definitely a little tougher than we anticipated,” Chamberlain told CNBC at the company’s man- ufacturing plant in Vance, Alabama. “I think there are lots of distractions out there, whether it’s geopolitics and everything else.”Car buyers are facing elevated auto loan inter- est rates and questions about the strength of the economy that threaten to slow shopping for a new vehicle.But even with gasoline prices now topping $4 a gallon in the U.S., Chamberlain said the auto- maker hasn’t yet seen consumers delaying buying a new Mercedes due to gas prices.“I think in the short term, it’s manageable,” said Chamberlain. “But I think over [a] 90, 100 or 120-day period at closer to $5 [per gallon], it starts to become a bigger distraction.”Mercedes is investing $4 billion in its Alabama plant through 2030 in a push to increase production as the automaker targets a 28% increase in U.S. car sales. - Npr.Private sector hiring totaled 62,000 in March, better than expected, ADP saysPrivate sector employment growth was a bit better than expected in March, but health care and construction continued to provide nearly all the momentum, payrolls processing company ADP reported Wednesday.Job growth totaled 62,000 for the month, down just 4,000 from February’s upwardly revised level but above the Dow Jones consensus for 39,000. ADP’s report does not include govern- ment employees.Like February’s report, two sectors essentially provided all the gains.Education and health services contributed 58,000 — identical to the February total — while construction added 30,000. The health services total was held back in the prior month due to a since-resolved strike at Kaiser Permanente that sidelined more than 30,000 workers in Hawaii and California.“We’ve seen two consecutive months of pretty steady job growth, but most of it has been in health care,” Nela Richardson, ADP’s chief economist, told CNBC. “That’s really the story. Health care is transforming the labor market.” - Com.China suppliers warn of higher prices for Americans due to Strait of Hormuz closurePickleball paddle producer Devi Wei has a mes- sage for U.S. shoppers.“Americans will have to pay more,” the Chinese businessman told CNBC at a Beijing trade show last week at the China International Exhibition Center.Because of the recent swings in oil prices result- ing from the Iran war and closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Wei, who founded his own exporting business, Huijin Trade, has had to hike prices on his paddles and pickleballs by as much as 20%, he said.Wei’s goods are made with polypropylene, a plastic material derived from oil and made in the Middle East, a dominant producer in the global industry. The war in Iran has stalled shipments of oil and its products through the Strait of Hormuz, raising concerns among Chinese man- ufacturers at the trade fair about further disrup- tion across the global supply chain.“I might have to go even higher,” Wei said. “Maybe double if the Iran war doesn’t stop soon.”Surging oil prices are filtering into prices of all kinds of products that rely on the commodity for manufacturing. - Chroniclejournal.Iran threatens Nvidia, Apple and other tech giants with attackIran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has threatened attacks on a swath of U.S. tech companies with operations in the Middle East, including Nvidia, Apple , Microsoft and Google.The IRGC warned on Tuesday that 18 tech companies would be considered as “legitimate targets” in retaliation for U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran.Attacks on those companies would begin from 8 p.m. on Wednesday, April 1, Tehran time (12:30 p.m. EDT), the IRGC said in a post on Telegram translated by Google, warning employees at those companies to leave workplaces immedi- ately to protect their lives.“From now on, for every assassination, an American company will be destroyed,” they said in an IRGC-affiliated Telegram channel. - Reu- ters.AI Age Oracle cutting thousands in latest layoff round as company continues to ramp AI spendingOracle has started telling employees that it’s cutting thousands of jobs, CNBC has confirmed, as the software maker deals with a plummeting stock price tied to hefty capital commitments for building out AI infrastructure.While Oracle’s core business is on the receiving end of market panic about competitive risk from generative artificial intelligence models, the company is also facing pressure from investors about the amount of debt it’s raising for AI investments and its dwindling cash flow.Business Insider reported on the latest cuts earlier on Tuesday. CNBC confirmed the cuts with two people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the announce- ment hasn’t been made public.Oracle, which employed 162,000 people as of May 2025, declined to comment. The compa- ny’s stock price is down 25% this year, dropping more than all of tech’s megacaps. - Euronews.Micron stock sinks 10%, further cratering in post-earnings sell-offMicron shares plummeted 10% on Monday, continuing the memory maker’s significant post-earnings sell-off.The company snapped a six-day slide on Friday with a modest gain, but with Monday’s loss, the stock is down 30% since its blowout earnings report on March 18.Other tech names also saw big losses Monday as oil climbed with the Iran war entering a fifth week and President Donald Trump threatening to destroy the country’s oil facilities. Neocloud companies CoreWeave and Nebius were each down about 8%, while memory makers SanDisk and Western Digital sank 7% and 9%, respec- tively.Micron’s strong earnings report for the second quarter was fueled by insatiable demand for artificial intelligence chips. - cnbca.Business Around The World The AXiS CCXI Friday 10 Apr 2026 23

CTrump says he will attend birthright citizen- ship arguments at Supreme CourtPresident Donald Trump has said he plans to attend the US Supreme Court arguments on Wednesday on whether the US should end its longstanding right to citizenship for anyone born in the country.On his first day back in office, he ordered an end to automatic - or birthright - citizenship for babies born to parents who are in the country illegally or temporarily.His executive order faced immediate opposition from those who said it went against the constitu- tion's amendment that grants citizenship to anyone born in US territory.The Trump administration says the order will combat \"significant threats to national security and public safety\". A decision is expected in the summer.The January 2025 executive order is part of Trump's effort to reform the nation's immigration system, a cornerstone of his second-term agenda.If he does attend the court, it is believed it would be the first time a sitting president attends oral arguments there. It would also point to the importance he sees in this change becoming law. COMIsrael intensifies Lebanon attacks and hits areas not in Hezbollah's controlIsrael has intensified its attacks on Lebanon this week, hitting areas outside of Hezbollah's con- trol on Tuesday.Strikes without warning hit a vehicle north of Beirut and the Jnah neighbourhood in the heart of the capital.Attacks also continued in the city's southern suburbs and the country's south, both where Hezbollah has a strong presence.A building was destroyed on the road to Beirut's airport after an evacuation order, and in the south, a strike hit a health facility, killing a para- medic, according to Lebanon's health ministry.Israel's military said it had hit Hezbollah infra- structure in Beirut and killed a senior command- er and another senior figure from the Iran-backed armed group. - Reuters.UK will seek closer ties with EU in light of Iran war, Starmer saysThe UK will pursue closer economic ties with the European Union in light of the war in Iran, Sir Keir Starmer has said.The prime minister told a news conference he would use a summit with the EU later this year to seek more cooperation with the bloc on the economy and security.It comes as relations between the US and the UK have been increasingly strained by the PM's refusal to be drawn further into the war with Iran.In his speech, Sir Keir warned the conflict would impact the UK but sought to reassure the public the government was taking action to ease the cost of living.The PM is facing calls from opposition parties to set out now how the government plans to protect people from rising energy costs.The Conservatives and Reform UK are both calling for VAT to be taken off household energy bills, while arguing the hike in fuel duty sched- uled for September should be cancelled.The Liberal Democrats are also calling for the increase not to go ahead, while the Greens say the government should commit billions of pounds now to subsidise energy bills from July, when the price cap is recalculated. - Euronews.US journalist Shelly Kittleson kidnapped in BaghdadA US freelance journalist has been kidnapped in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, and one of the sus- pects is linked to an Iran-backed militia, Iraqi and US officials say.Shelly Kittleson was abducted on Tuesday eve- ning, said Al-Monitor, a news outlet for which she has contributed articles.The Iraqi interior ministry said security forces had chased the reporter's abductors in a pursuit that resulted in one of the kidnappers' cars over- turning and the arrest of one suspect.A US state department official said an individual with ties to an Iranian-aligned militia group, Kataib Hezbollah, was detained by Iraqi authori- ties.Dylan Johnson, assistant secretary of state for global public affairs, confirmed the abduction of an American journalist, without naming Kittle- son.He posted on X: \"The State Department previ- ously fulfilled our duty to warn this individual of threats against them and we will continue to coordinate with the FBI to ensure their release as quickly as possible.\" - ReutersChina is trying to play peacemaker in the Iran warAs the war in the Middle East enters its second month, choking the world's energy supply and sending oil prices soaring, China is trying to step in as a peacemaker.It comes as President Donald Trump says US military action in Iran could end in \"two to three weeks\", but there is no clear sense yet of how that will happen or what comes after.China joins Pakistan, which has emerged as an unlikely mediator in the US-Israel war against Iran. Officials in Beijing and Islamabad have presented a five-point plan with the aim of bring- ing about a ceasefire and re-opening the vital Strait of Hormuz.Pakistan, which has been a US ally in the past, seems to have won over Trump to mediate this conflict.Beijing, however, is entering the fray as a rival to Washington, ahead of crucial trade talks between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Trump next month.China's backing on this is \"very important,\" says Zhu Yongbiao, a Middle East expert and director of the Centre for Afghanistan Studies at Lan- zhou University.\"Morally, politically and diplomatically, China is providing comprehensive support with the hope that Pakistan can play a more distinctive role.\" - BbcIndonesian peacekeepers’ deaths spur calls for Middle East exit planThe killing of three Indonesian peacekeepers in southern Lebanon is a stern test of Jakarta’s Middle East policy, with analysts saying the inci- dent has raised questions over the risks of over- seas deployment in Gaza and the region, as well as limits to global accountability.Several Indonesian lawmakers and observers said the deaths had exposed how little protec- tion diplomatic positions could offer during a spiralling conflict, arguing that Jakarta should reassess its role in Lebanon and involvement in new US-backed initiatives tied to the region.Indonesia is under pressure to intensify diplo- matic efforts and push for accountability from Israel following the fatal attacks on Sunday and Monday, which also injured five others.The incidents also prompted calls to evaluate Indonesia’s membership in the Donald Trump-led Board of Peace, of which Israel is also a member, as well as the plan to send thou- sands of soldiers to war-torn Gaza to participate in the US-led International Stabilisation Force.On Tuesday, Indonesia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it “condemns in the strongest terms” the attacks on the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which “reflect a rapidly deteriorating security environment in southern Lebanon, where ongoing Israeli military opera- tions have placed UN peacekeepers at grave risk”.“The recurrence of such heinous attacks against Indonesian peacekeepers within a short span of time is utterly unacceptable,” the ministry said in a statement. - Cnbca.Malaysian anti-corruption body offers to pay for witness’s flight in chips probeMalaysia’s anti-corruption agency on Wednes- day offered to pay for the flight of a Lon- don-based key witness to help with its investiga- tion into possible corruption linked to a US$250 million deal signed last year between the gov- ernment and British chip design firm Arm Hold- ings.The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has for the past month been on the hunt for former government aide James Chai, whom it said was a key witness in its probe on possible abuse of power, fraud and governance failures in the multimillion-dollar deal meant to accelerate the country’s ambitions to break into the lucrative segment of high-end chip design and manufacturing.The commission said Chai, who served as an aide to former economy minister Rafizi Ramli, had twice failed to make the necessary arrange- ments to fly from London, where he was current- ly living and working, to Malaysia for questioning at its headquarters in the administrative capital of Putrajaya.“Accordingly, MACC has issued a letter today requiring him to attend within two weeks, and has also expressed its willingness to bear the cost of his return flight to Malaysia to assist with the investigation,” the commission said in a statement. - Abcnews.Pakistan eyes Gulf investment, defence deals in return for playing peacemaker in Iran warPakistan is hoping that its role in building a diplomatic off-ramp from the US-Israel war on Iran will enable it to become a key actor in the Middle East after the conflict ends, analysts say.If Islamabad can deliver without being sucked into the maelstrom, it can capitalise on its posi- tion as peacemaker by signing defence deals with Gulf monarchies and attracting investment from them to strengthen its weak economy.This will help finance Pakistan’s military expan- sion for its envisioned new regional responsibili- ties and deterrence against long-standing enemy India, with which it fought a short air war last May. - Aljazeera.Nepal’s probe into deadly uprising finds ex-prime minister, officials ‘reckless’A high-level inquiry in Nepal has held former prime minister K.P. Sharma Oli and other senior government officials responsible for criminal negligence over the shootings in last year’s deadly youth uprising that killed 76 people, as the leak of the crucial report to a local publica- tion triggered criticisms due to its sensitive nature.The committee, led by former judge Gauri Baha- dur Karki, has recommended investigation and prosecution of Oli, his home minister Ramesh Lekhak, and former Inspector General of Police Chandra Kuber Khapung for “negligent and careless conduct” that led to a high number of casualties. The report proposes prison sentenc- es of up to 10 years for the officials.“There was a deliberate violation of duty,” the report said. “There was no effort made to stop it … or to issue corrective orders to stop the use of lethal force.”- Scmp.Nedbank resets Africa strategy as Ecobank Politics Around The World The AXiS CCXI Friday 10 Apr 2026 24

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MarketswatchZiG Marks Two Milestoneshe past week has been the most consequential for the Zimbabwe Gold (ZiG) since the September 2024 devaluation, combining a landmark institutional milestone with a jarring market reaction that has renewed questions about the currency's durability.On 7 April 2026, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe officially launched its redesigned 'Big Five' ZiG banknote series, introducing the ZiG10, ZiG20, and ZiG50 denominations featuring Zimbabwe's iconic wildlife on the front and redesigned security features. Governor John Mushayavanhu confirmed that the new notes co-circulate indefinitely with the existing series, with older notes to be withdrawn gradually as they are returned to the banking system. ZiG1, ZiG2, and ZiG5 coins have also been reissued to ease small-value transactions and address the persistent problem of businesses rounding prices upward due to a lack of change.This week also marks the second anniversary of the ZiG's introduction on 8 April 2024. The currency was launched at an exchange rate of 13.56 per US dollar; it currently trades at approximately 25.24 on the official interbank market, a cumulative depreciation of around 86% over two years. That trajectory, while significant, includes the 42.55% administrative devaluation of September 2024, after which the RBZ overhauled its monetary framework. Since the post-devaluation tightening, the ZiG has traded in a remarkably narrow band, reflecting deliberate liquidity compression rather than free market pricing.The banknote launch, however, triggered an immediate and sharp reaction in the parallel market. The unofficial exchange rate spiked to approximately ZiG40 per dollar on 7 April, a level not seen since before the RBZ's tightening cycle, representing a parallel market premium of roughly 60% above the official rate. Market participants appear to have interpreted the note rollout as an expansion of money supply, despite the RBZ's explicit and repeated assurances that no new liquidity would enter the system through the exchange of electronic balances for physical cash.Regional MarketsRand Regains FootingThe South African rand has traded in a narrow range over the course of this week, hovering between R16.8 and R17 per dollar as investors assessed the evolving Middle East situation with cautious optimism. Early in the week, the currency benefited from reports that US allies including Pakistan, Egypt, and Turkey were pushing Iran toward a last-minute ceasefire deal as President Trump extended his deadline to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. That news, combined with a softer dollar and rising precious metals prices, briefly supported the rand toward R16.8.However, gains were capped as Trump's renewed threats of escalation dampened optimism later in the week, and the rand retraced toward R17. The currency remains down approximately 6% since the US-Israel conflict against Iran began in late February, reflecting South Africa's acute vulnerability to higher energy costs as a significant net importer of crude oil. The South African Reserve Bank held its benchmark policy rate at 6.75% at its March meeting and has clearly signalled that rate hikes remain on the table if energy-driven inflation materialises.Kwacha Holds Steady The Zambian Kwacha has exhibited impressive composure this week, trading in a tight range of 19.22 to 19.28 per dollar and holding close to levels seen at the start of April. The currency's week-on-week stability is particularly noteworthy given the heightened global risk-off environment, with commodity-linked currencies under pressure elsewhere. The kwacha's resilience reflects the structural anchors supporting Zambia's external position: copper prices remain elevated around US$13,000 per tonne, mining inflows are robust, and the IMF-backed reform programme continues to provide a credibility floor.On a 12-month basis, the kwacha is up nearly 31% against the dollar, a performance that places it among the top-performing currencies on the African continent. The currency has retraced from its February peak of approximately 18.36 (its strongest level since mid-2023) but the fundamental drivers of the recovery remain intact. Pula Stages Recovery as Dollar SoftensThe Botswana Pula staged a sharp recovery during the past week, with the USD/BWP rate falling to 13.40 on 8 April from approximately 14.27 at the start of the period, a move of over 6% in the pula's favour. The recovery reflects two converging forces: a softening US dollar on the back of ceasefire optimism in the Middle East, and a partial unwinding of the risk-off selling that had pressured the pula through much of March. The pula's managed crawling peg framework, administered by the Bank of Botswana, provides a degree of structural resistance to sharp moves, but broader currency basket dynamics, particularly the rand, which shares significant weight in the peg, amplified the appreciation.The pula's year-on-year gain of 5.13% is a relatively solid outcome for a currency navigating significant diamond sector headwinds. Global rough diamond demand remains subdued, and Botswana's fiscal position has been squeezed by lower royalty revenues. Nonetheless, the Bank of Botswana has managed the crawling peg with discipline, and tourism sector recovery, a growing contributor to non-diamond export earnings, has provided some offset.Naira DivergesThe Nigerian Naira has presented a tale of two markets during this week. On Tuesday 7 April, the official NFEM rate and the parallel market rate achieved near-complete convergence at approximately ₦1,379 per dollar, a remarkable milestone for the CBN's exchange rate unification policy. The premium between the two markets had virtually disappeared, down to just ₦0.20, representing the tightest spread since the unification framework was introduced. This convergence signals meaningful progress in eliminating the arbitrage opportunities that had historically distorted Nigeria's FX market.However, the picture shifted through the remainder of the week as the parallel market began drifting higher. By 8–9 April, the black market rate had moved back to ₦1,390–1,410 per dollar, while the official NFEM rate settled around ₦1,371–1,387. The divergence appears to reflect renewed corporate demand for foreign exchange as Q2 invoice cycles intensify, as well as some sensitivity to the global risk-off environment and higher oil price uncertainty.Shilling Steady as Rate Hold ConfirmedThe most significant development for Kenyan markets this week was the Central Bank of Kenya's Monetary Policy Committee decision on 8 April 2026 to hold the Central Bank Rate steady at 8.75%, marking the first pause in what had been the longest monetary easing cycle in the institution's history. The MPC had cut rates at ten consecutive meetings since August 2024, reducing the benchmark rate from a cycle high of 13.0% to 8.75%, a cumulative easing of 425 basis points.Despite the hold, domestic conditions remain broadly supportive. Private sector credit growth accelerated to 8.1% in March 2026, the strongest reading in over two years, and average commercial bank lending rates have fallen to 14.7%. Forex reserves stand at US$13.35 billion, equivalent to 5.68 months of import cover, well above the CBK's four-month minimum threshold. GDP growth for 2025 is estimated at 5.0%, with the 2026 projection revised modestly to 5.3% from 5.5% to account for emerging global risks. The shilling itself has remained stable through the week, reflecting the resilience that the CBK's reserve buffer and fiscal discipline have built into the currency over the past 12 months.The AXiS CCXI Friday 10 Apr 2026 26TNew Banknotes and Second Birthday, as Parallel Rate Spikes

ZSE & VFEX WEEKLY COMMENTARYSE opened the new month on a positive note, recouping prior week's losses as investors seek to hedge against anticipated inflationary pressures amid fuel hikes despite government's reprieve. The ZSE All Share Index strengthened by 1.13% week-on-week to Thursday to close at 363.32 points, driven by strong performance in both market heavies and medium caps. Year-to-date, the ZSE All Share Index is up 30.8% (34.6% in US$ terms), which compares to a 27.7% nominal growth (26.8% in US$ terms) registered in same period in 2025, and a 117.6% nominal growth (14.4% in US$ terms) achieved in 2024. The ZSE mainstream index slipped by -0.16% in nominal terms (up 1.63% in US$ terms) in March, countering a nominal 0.9% (0.1% in US$ terms) growth registered in February.The US$ denominated bourse, VFEX, took a breather in the Easter-holiday-shortened week under review as investors took out gains following a sustained strong performance in the just ended month of March. The mainstream VFEX All Share Index plunged by a staggering -6.82% against prior week to close at 244.22 points, driven by 7 laggards which outweighed 4 risers. The market strengthened by 11.5% in March, buttressing the 6% growth garnered in February. The All-share index has climbed 38.1% year-to-date, compared to a staggering 70% growth achieved in 2025, and a mild growth of 4.1% registered in 2024. An aggregate of US$5,166,220 exchanged hands this week, up from US$4,752,901 traded in the prior week.On currency markets, the ZiG sustained stability throughout 2025, depreciating by a mild -0.7% against the USD on interbank while maintaining exchange premium at 38%. The stability has continued into 2026 as the government maintains a contractionary monetary and fiscal policy stance. However, as the local currency appreciates against the USD on interbank, the parallel market remains stable, marginally depreciating and widening the exchange premium. This has the effect of fuelling speculative trading over time. The ZiG appreciated by 0.46% against the USD on the interbank market this week to close at ZWG25.24 per each US$.ZThe AXiS CCXI Friday 10 Apr 2026 27ZSE ASI VFEX ASI ZWG INTERBANK RATE 02/0407/0408/0409/0402/0407/0408/0409/0402/0407/0408/0409/04359.27 262.09 25.36360.35 262.23 25.33363.89 250.68 25.24363.32 244.22 25.241.13% -6.82% 0.46% ZSE TOP 10 INDEX MEDIUM CAP INDEX SMALL CAP INDEX 100.11100.11100.11100.110.00% 02/0407/0408/0409/0402/0407/0408/0409/0402/0407/0408/0409/04365.42 360.41366.49 361.62369.44 367.51368.67 367.610.89% 2.00%

TOP 5 WEEKLY RISERSTOP 5 WEEKLY FALLERS FINANCIAL MARKETS AT A GLANCE 2025AFDISARISTONBATCFIDELTADAIRIBORDHIPPOMEIKLESOKSEEDCOSTAR AFRICATSLTanganda 16003212996192698.2270900339.9511.3694398.04913440.2514014003213006192650.132326080031211.36943953.2794423.95140Latest PriceZiG CentsPrevious WeekZiG CentsConsumerStaplesRTG 18.009 18.009Latest PriceZWL CentsConsumer Previous WeekZWL CentsCAFCAG/BELTINGSMASIMBANAMPAKUNIFREIGHTZECO1300.0510.0517075.09653000.00181300.0510.05160753000.0018Latest PriceZiG CentsIndustrialsSectorPrevious WeekZiG CentsARTZDRPROPLASTICSTURNALLWilldaleRioZim6.8054151.99.53.0696756.805415110.053.0575Latest PriceZiG CentsMaterialsSectorPrevious WeekZiG CentsTN CYBERTECHECONETZIMPAPERS121020.67546.812.21251020.67548Latest PriceZiG CentsICTSectorPrevious WeekZiG CentsMASHHOLDFMP100.05100100.0485100Latest PriceZiG CentsReal EstateSectorPrevious WeekZiG CentsAFDISFIDELITYHIPPOMEIKLESMASIMBA1600.0068.00900.00339.95170.002008100281014.3%13.7%12.5%9.0%6.3%COUNTER PRICE CENTS CHANGE % CHANGE ZIMPAPERSSTAR AFRICAFMLTURNALLZHL6.803.00350.009.5073.28 (1) (0) (30) (1) (2)-15.0%-8.5%-7.9%-5.5%-2.3%COUNTER PRICE CENTS CHANGE ANGE Interbank Market Rate 25.240.46% ZSE Top 10 Index 368.670.89% ZSE All Share Index 363.321.13% NGSE All Share Index 203,161.80.73%11,108.140.23%BSE All Share Index LuSE All Share Index 27,108.3-0.68%VFEX All Share Index 244.22-6.82% JSE All Share Index 118,2051.79%CBZFBCHFIDELITYFMLNMBZZBFHZHLZSE Holdings1619.199906835052051873.2766119.351600100059.838052051875120Latest PriceZiG CentsFinancialSectorPrevious WeekZiG Cents363.32244.22VFEX All Share IndexZSE All Share indexVFEX All Share IndexWOW -6.8% MoM 15.5% YTD 38.1%363.32312.62ZSE Financials SectorZSE All Share indexZSE Financials indexWOW -0.9% MoM -1.5% YTD 3.2%363.32144.86ZSE Industrials Index (New)ZSE All Share indexZSE Industrials Index (new)WOW 1.7% MoM -6.3% YTD 5.5%363.32598.73ZSE Real Estate IndexZSE All Share index ZSE Real Estate IndexWOW -1.5% MoM -17% YTD -2.8%11108.14363.32BSE All Share IndexBSE All Share IndexZSE All Share indexWOW 0.2% MoM 1% YTD 0.7%363.32368.67ZSE Top 10 IndexZSE All Share indexZSE Top10 indexWOW 0.9% MoM -0.7% YTD 30.8%363.32875.32ZSE Consumer Discretionary IndexZSE All Share indexZSE Consumer Discretionary indexWOW 0% MoM 72.5% YTD 16.5%363.32387.85ZSE ICT IndexZSE All Share indexZSE ICT IndexWOW -15% MoM -5.2% YTD 44.2%1.9%1.0%Interbank MarketInterbank MoM Mvt.ZSE All Share index27108.3363.32LUSE All Share IndexLUSE All Share IndexZSE All Share indexWOW -0.7% MoM 1.5% YTD 4.6%363.32367.61ZSE Medium Cap IndexZSE All Share indexMedium Cap indexWOW 2% MoM 10% YTD 32.2%363.32273.13ZSE Consumer Staples IndexZSE All Share indexZSE Consumers Staples indexWOW 2.5% MoM -4.9% YTD 16.9%363.32176.29ZSE Materials IndexZSE All Share indexZSE Materials IndexWOW -2% MoM 3% YTD 10.1%118205363.32JSE All Share Index JSE All Share IndexZSE All Share indexWOW 1.8% MoM -6.7% YTD 2.1%203161.8363.32NGSE All Share Index NGSE All Share IndexZSE All Share indexWOW 0.7% MoM 4.5% YTD 30.6%

Regional Economic WatchIn its report, the AfDB said that continent-wide, debt-service obligations were consuming more than 31% of government revenues, crowding out investments in health, education, and infrastructure. Total African public debt reached $1.9 trillion in 2024, with seven countries in debt distress and 13 others at high risk.The bank said that sharp cuts to official development assistance threat- ened health, education, and social protection programmes, noting that in some countries, external funding had covered more than half of current health expenditures.The United States, which largely eliminated its primary aid agency last year, had accounted for 33.6% of bilateral ODA to Africa between 2015 and 2023.The bank said that foreign direct investment flows to Africa were already 42% lower in the first half of 2025, and further risk aver- sion could trigger capital outflowsAFREXIMBANKThe Africa Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) raised $2 billion via a three-year dual tranche syndicated loan, its largest-ever such transac- tion, it said on Monday.The issue raised $1.73 billion and 228 million euros, the Cairo-based lender said in a statement, which it will use to refinance existing facilities and general expenditures. The bank initially aimed to raise $1.5 billion, but lifted the total due to strong investor demand, it said. It did not pro- vide a cost for the loan.A total of 31 lenders from Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa partic- ipated in the deal. Mashreqbank PSC, MUFG Bank and Standard Char- tered Bank acted as joint global coordinators, lead arrangers and bookrunners in the transaction.Afreximbank has clashed with some in the international financial com- munity over whether it has “preferred creditor status” or whether it must take losses on loans to debt-defaulted countries, including Ghana and Zambia.Earlier this year, it severed ties with credit ratings firm Fitch, citing a “firm belief” that the agency’s rating approach no longer reflected an under- standing of the bank’s mission and mandate.IVORY COASTAbove-average rainfall across most of Ivory Coast’s key cocoa-growing regions last week has boosted expectations for a longer and more pro- ductive March-to-August mid-crop, farmers said on Monday. Ivory Coast, the world’s biggest cocoa producer, is transitioning from its dry season, which runs from mid-November to March, into the rainy season, officially beginning in April and ending in mid-November.Farmers indicated that consistent rainfall throughout April will be vital to the development and maturation of cocoa pods, with many expecting to have a clearer view of the crop’s quality and size by late April.Harvesting is currently underway in several plantations, albeit limited volumes, farmers and cooperatives told Reuters.However, some farmers noted better yields compared to the same period last year. Farmers in other regions where recent rainfall exceeded the five-year average, including Divo and Abengourou, echoed similar sentiments. They reported favourable tree development and the appear- ance of new leaves, a key indicator of a strong mid-crop.Marcel Kanga, a farmer near Daloa, where rainfall reached 27.7 mm last week — 7.5 mm above the five-year average — said “it continues to be very hot. The trees are yielding well and if it rains enough in April, the mid-crop will be abundant.”Still, in areas where rainfall was below average, such as Agboville, Bon- gouanou and Yamoussoukro, farmers expressed optimism, citing suffi- cient moisture to sustain crop growth.BotswanaBotswana’s real gross domestic product shrank 5.4% in year-on-year terms in the fourth quarter of last year, data showed on Tuesday, mainly due to weakness in its mining sector. A breakdown by Statistics Botswana showed the mining and quarrying industry recorded a 47% decrease in value added during the last three months of 2025.Other sectors that con- tracted included construction and water and electricity, the statistics agency said.Botswana’s economy has been hit hard by a prolonged downturn in the global diamond market, driven by economic uncertainty and the rising popularity of lab-grown stones. The Southern African country’s GDP decreased 0.7% in 2025, after a 2.8% decline in 2024.Before the diamond market slump, Botswana had been viewed as an African economic success story, partly because of its low public debt. Finance Minister Ndaba Gaolathe said last month the economy was pro- jected to rebound this year, but debt is expected to rise because of anoth- er large budget deficit.Gaolathe last week sought parliamentary approval to raise the country’s statutory debt ceiling from 40% to 60% of GDP. Diamonds normally con- tribute around one-third of Botswana’s national revenues and three-quarters of its foreign-exchange receipts.South AfricaSouth Africa’s Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana is considering lower- ing the fuel levy to cushion the impact of the Iran war on domestic fuel prices, a senior government official told Reuters. Godongwana will announce his decision on Tuesday, the official said, asking not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.Africa’s biggest economy adjusts fuel prices monthly using a formula that factors in movements in global crude oil prices, the exchange rate and local taxes such as the fuel levy. Price changes take effect on the first Wednesday of every month, but the government has yet to announce the new prices that will kick in on Wednesday, April 1.Without government intervention, domestic prices are expected to jump due to the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, which has driven up global energy prices. South African trade unions, business lobby groups and political parties have urged the government to lower the fuel levy to shield house- holds from big fuel price hikes.AFDBThe shock of the Middle Eastern conflict to the African economy could be modest, the African Development Bank said on Monday, although it wors- ens an outlook already weakened by debt burdens, shrinking aid and global instability.Chief Economist Kevin Urama estimated that growth could fall by about 0.2 percentage points provided the war does not last longer than three months.In the report, compiled with data up to January, the continent’s largest multilateral development finance institution projected that the pace of Africa’s economic growth would quicken to 4.3% this year, and 4.5% in 2027, but said mounting debt and fiscal pressures were significant head- winds.The negative impact could be offset for oil-exporting African countries by higher oil prices that have resulted from supply disruption. International oil prices on Monday were on track for a record monthly gain as a result of the Iran war.In theory, domestic refinery capacity – such as Nigeria’s Dangote oil refin- ery — could also cushion the continent against supply disruptions. How- ever, Urama said the crisis was already affecting African economies through higher fuel, food, and fertiliser prices. About 29 African countries had already experienced currency depreciation linked to inflationary pressures from the shock, he said.29 The AXiS CCXI Friday 10 Apr 2026