Online Reporter
Tawanda Musarurwa in VICTORIA FALLS
ZIMBABWE has the domestic capital base to fund transformative infrastructure and industrialisation projects, but weak financial intermediation and conservative investment strategies are preventing long-term savings from driving economic growth, CBZ Holdings Group chief executive Lawrence Nyazema has said.
Addressing delegates at the Zimbabwe Association of Pension Funds (ZAPF) Conference 2026 in Victoria Fallstoday, Mr Nyazema argued that Africa’s challenge was no longer a lack of capital, but the failure to channel available resources into productive sectors capable of generating jobs, exports and sustainable returns.
He said Africa’s capital pools were estimated at between US$4 trillion and US$5 trillion, comprising roughly US$2 trillion held by commercial banks and between US$1 trillion and US$2 trillion in pension and insurance funds.
Yet, nearly a quarter of that capital is invested outside the continent, largely in low-yielding United States Treasury instruments.
“We are taking capital out of Africa, where it is needed the most, and investing it in so-called safe havens that are already industrialised,” Mr Nyazema said.
“We export raw materials and import prosperity.”
He said the continent’s continued reliance on foreign aid and expensive offshore borrowing had become unsustainable at a time when concessional funding was shrinking and commercial debt carried punitive double-digit interest rates.
“We take half a trillion dollars of our capital and invest it at almost zero percent, then borrow back the money at double-digit interest rates. That does not make sense,” he said.
Turning to Zimbabwe, Mr Nyazema said the country already possessed the foundation for domestically funded industrialisation through existing capital pools estimated at about US$26 billion.
The largest share, approximately US$16 billion, is held in assets under the Mutapa Investment Fund, while commercial banks account for around US$6 billion and pension funds roughly US$3 billion.
“Even if you took away Mutapa, we still have US$10 billion to play around with,” he said.
However, the CBZ chief executive said most pension fund assets remained concentrated in low-productivity investments, with about 35 percent allocated to property and around 23 percent invested in quoted equities.
He contrasted this with global pension markets valued at roughly US$68 trillion, where major economies allocate substantial portions to fixed income markets, infrastructure and diversified productive investments.
In the United States, he noted, between 45 percent and 50 percent of pension assets are invested in equities, while roughly a third are deployed through bonds and fixed-income instruments that finance business expansion and infrastructure development.
Zimbabwe’s fixed-income allocation, by comparison, stands at only about 7 percent.
Mr Nyazema said Zimbabwe needed to shift from “survival capital” focused on preserving value towards “growth capital” capable of compounding wealth over decades.
He cited Canada’s CPP Investments, which grew from about C$100 billion to C$800 billion over two decades after diversifying beyond traditional property and domestic bond investments.
He also pointed to Australia’s pension industry, where major superannuation funds expanded from around US$300 billion to US$2.5 trillion over 28 years through large-scale investments in infrastructure, housing and national development projects.
Zimbabwean pension funds, he argued, should similarly take direct stakes in infrastructure assets such as solar plants, irrigation schemes, logistics hubs and data centres.
“There is absolutely no reason why youths in Nigeria and Kenya should dominate Africa’s IT startup space while Zimbabwean talent remains unsupported,” he said.
He also called for consolidation within Zimbabwe’s fragmented pension sector, arguing that merging smaller funds into larger institutions would reduce costs, improve governance and unlock capacity for major projects.
“How does a pension fund with US$10 million compete effectively when consolidation could create scale and significant investment power?” he asked.
Mr Nyazema revealed that a pipeline of projects worth more than US$500 million was already ready for deployment, with the first US$100 million financing package expected to close before month-end.
The projects include three mining ventures — two gold projects and one platinum group metals development — alongside a US$100 million road infrastructure investment and a renewable energy project requiring another US$100 million.
One of the gold projects, linked to Mutapa, is expected to become Zimbabwe’s largest gold mine once completed.
“These are bankable national assets that should be shown to institutional investors so we share both the risks and the prosperity,” he said.
Mr Nyazema said regulators would naturally reduce reliance on prescribed asset requirements if pension funds voluntarily increased investment into productive sectors such as housing, roads and renewable energy.
“The issue is not lack of capital,” he said. “The issue is effective financial intermediation.”
He said rebuilding trust, strengthening governance and creating investment scale would be critical if Zimbabwe was to mobilise domestic savings into a sustainable engine for industrialisation, employment creation and long-term economic growth.
