𝗛𝗢𝗪 𝗗𝗜𝗗 𝗞𝗨𝗗𝗔 𝗧𝗔𝗚𝗪𝗜𝗥𝗘𝗜 — 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗚𝗢𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗡𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧’𝗦 𝗕𝗜𝗚𝗚𝗘𝗦𝗧 𝗕𝗔𝗖𝗞𝗘𝗥

President E.D Mnangagwa, Vice President Chiwenga standing with Zimbabwean tycoon Kuda Tagwirei

Since I posted my opinion that Kuda Tagwirei could make a good president in the future—after ED’s successor—many have asked how he made his money.

Kuda and his wife, Sandra Mpunga (together, San-Kuda: Sa-Ku-nda), began building their wealth in 2002 after Kuda was retrenched from CBZ, by wholesaling fuel and other commodities.

Having received support from people like Dr. Mangudya, by 2009, Kuda was selling over 60 million liters of fuel annually.

Instead of spending his profits on luxuries—like houses and cars—he reinvested in commodity broking. Transitioning from a fuel seller to a fuel broker, Kuda and Sandra [Sakunda] began pushing massive volumes of fuel at discounted prices, outpacing their peers.

By 2011–2012, Sakunda had grown into the biggest fuel brokerage in the SADC region outside South Africa. Recognizing this, then-GNU Minister of Energy and Power Development, Elton Mangoma, offered Kuda a public-private partnership deal to manage and maintain the NOIC fuel pipeline from Feruka to Harare. Sanctions hindered the government from maintaining the pipeline and paying throughput fees to Mozambique.

From this deal, Sakunda scaled fuel delivery to over 120 million liters per month—equivalent to 1.5 billion liters annually. Global players like Glencore and Trafigura began paying Sakunda to transport their fuel through the pipeline. For every liter moved, Kuda [Sakunda] earned a commission.

As a result, Sakunda generated over $2 billion in annual revenue, making it Zimbabwe’s largest company by revenue—surpassing the combined revenue of the top five listed companies on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange.

With such massive cash flow, Sandra and Kuda (through Sakunda) diversified into investment banking, mining, and the financial sector. They became the government's largest lender and financier, especially during a time when Executive Order sanctions scared off traditional financial institutions from lending to Zimbabwe.

This influence transformed Kuda and Sandra into the Rothschilds of Zimbabwe. Their financial muscle enabled them to address national crises—fuel shortages, grain deficits, and capital scarcity. But such power made Western governments, especially the U.S., uneasy at a time they were trying to bring Zimbabwe to its knees by depriving it of capital and investment.

Under pressure from the opposition MDC, who wanted to remove ZANU PF from power, the U.S. sanctioned Kuda, Sandra, Sakunda, and any of their close partners for materially assisting the Zimbabwean government.

Sandra Mpunga, who remains unknown to the public, was also sanctioned for her role in Sakunda—highlighting just how much influence the couple has amassed by merely making billions and reinvesting them back in Zimbabwe when the rest of the world and business were trying to isolate Zimbabwe.

These sanctions were accompanied by negative propaganda and false claims—chief among them being that Kuda stole $3 billion from Command Agriculture. In reality, he had coordinated with 8 fellow businesses, which include FSG, Windmill, SeedCo, Cottco, ZFC, Quton, Sable and others, to use their excess foreign currency savings to help fund the government’s purchase of agricultural inputs to help the country import substitute by producing more grain locally, for a modest return of 5% after one year.

A parliamentary commission of inquiry, led by Tendai Biti and co-chaired by Temba Mliswa under the Public Accounts Committee, later cleared Kuda of all wrongdoing by confirming that over 8 companies had supplied agricultural inputs to government on lenient 12-month payment terms.

All this information is publicly available, including in the official parliamentary report, but as is often the case, many Zimbabweans—including journalists and bloggers—prefer gossip over reading and learning the truth.