Let’s give credit where it is due.
For months, Zimbabweans have been fed a narrative so persistent, so loud, and so deliberately misleading that it has become accepted as fact: that this government is running a mass demolition programme against its own people.
That narrative is false. Categorically, demonstrably, provably false.
And on 11 November 2026, Local Government Minister Hon. Daniel Garwe finally said it plainly:
“We have never initiated any demolition as Ministry-that should be categorically stated. We are actually stopping individuals and councils with court orders to demolish. Operation Chenesa has nothing to do with people’s homes.”
Read that again. The Ministry has never initiated a single demolition. Not one. What has actually been happening is the opposite: the Ministry has been stopping individuals and councils who arrive armed with court orders to tear down structures.
That is not a government demolishing homes. That is a government defending them.
The Lie vs. The Record
Let us separate fiction from fact, once and for all.
The lie: Government is running a mass demolition campaign.
The record: No law in Zimbabwe permits the demolition of homes. The Ministry has never initiated a demolition. Where demolitions have been threatened, the Ministry has intervened to stop them.
The lie: Operation Chenesa is a cover for destroying people’s homes.
The record: Operation Chenesa is a clean-up and order-restoration exercise. It targets disorder, illegal drug peddling, unregulated trading, unsafe structures, not residential homes.
Hon Garwe has stated this categorically: “Operation Chenesa has nothing to do with people’s homes.”
The lie: The Ministry is driving the chaos.
The record: The Ministry is stopping the chaos. The real culprits are individuals and councils acting on private court orders, and, critically, ghost accounts on social media manufacturing panic and spreading outright falsehoods.
Who Benefits From The Lie?
Ask yourself: who gains from convincing Zimbabweans that their government is bulldozing their homes?
The answer is uncomfortable but obvious. Political actors and anonymous social media operators have weaponised demolition fear to inflame public anger, destabilise communities, and paint a false picture of a government at war with its citizens. They do not care about the vendor whose stall was relocated, or the family reassured by the Ministry’s intervention. They care about the narrative.
That ended on 11 November.
The Facts On The Ground
Operation Chenesa is not a demolition programme. It is a clean-up programme. And the numbers tell a story of enforcement against disorder, not against homes:
· 35,365 illegal businesses and activities impacted
· 16,529 illegal structures dismantled – stalls, illegal vending sites, unregulated trading points
· 1,446 arrests
· Fines totalling USD 118,553 and R1,000
And alongside the enforcement, the infrastructure: vending sites with water and sanitation across all 2,500 wards, and urgent renovation of dilapidated markets.
That is not the behaviour of a government tearing down livelihoods. That is a government formalising and protecting them.
Municipal police also seized hundreds of cartons of illegal drugs and large quantities of prescription-only medicines, including steroids. That is a public safety victory, not a housing crisis.
The Standard Has Been Set
Hon. Garwe has now drawn the line clearly:
No mass demolition programme exists, the Ministry has never initiated one.
The Ministry is stopping demolitions, individuals and councils with court orders are being halted.
Operation Chenesa has nothing to do with homes, it is about order, cleanliness, and safety.
Ghost accounts are lying, and they have been named.
Zimbabweans are not confused. They have heard the message. And the message is unambiguous: this government is cleaning up the country, not tearing down its people.
The narrative of mass demolition is dead. It was never true. And it is time every citizen, every vendor, and every community held the rumour-mongers to account for the panic they have caused.
Hon. Garwe has spoken. The record is straight. Now let the truth travel as fast as the lie did.
“There is no government law that says houses should be demolished. We are actually protecting citizens from demolitions.” The report confirmed the government’s continued commitment to enforcement against illegal trading while expanding legal vending infrastructure.
Hon Garwe was emphatic that the programme targets “disorderliness, and not to demolish people’s homes, contrary to false claims being circulated on social media platforms.”
The report also noted the government’s concern that “some council officials are feeding the public wrong information” a crucial admission that the confusion came from within the system, not from the Minister’s office.
A major public safety victory: municipal police seized hundreds of cartons of illegal drugs and large quantities of prescription-only medicines, including steroids. Garwe: “Rather than demolishing houses, our focus is entirely on ensuring order and better structures for the vendors themselves.”
“We are actually protecting citizens from demolitions.” The report detailed the infrastructure plan, vending facilities with water and sanitation across all 2 500 wards, and urgent renovation of dilapidated markets.