By Cde Nhamo Taneta

Behold Zimbabwe’s newest tourist attraction — the US$88 million Trabablas Interchange, where the concrete is as thin as the government’s excuses and the engineering as solid as the Zimdollar.

What was once a simple roundabout at Mbudzi is now a glittering monument to looting, proving once again that in Zimbabwe, we don’t build infrastructure — we build very expensive metaphors for state capture.

The numbers alone are enough to make a Swiss banker blush: US$88 million for an interchange that looks suspiciously like something that should have cost half as much.

However, when your construction consortium — the creatively named TEFOMA — includes Kuda Tagwirei’s cronies, suddenly every bag of cement needs its own offshore account.

The only things more inflated than the price tag are the egos of those who approved it.

Take a closer look past the glossy aerial shots and you’ll find engineering so creative it would make a postmodern artist weep.

Those uneven surfaces, well they’re not defects — they’re “job creation projects” for future repair crews.

The suspicious cracks already forming, are merely “expansion joints” for when the corruption inevitably expands.

The safety record speaks for itself — one dead worker during construction, multiple near-misses, and enough construction violations to make a Chinese factory boss nervous.

Let’s not forget the US$7 million goat tender scandal that makes this interchange extra special — proving that in Zimbabwe, even livestock procurement can be turned into a get-rich-quick scheme.

Meanwhile, displaced families are still waiting for compensation with all the confidence of ZESA customers hoping for 24-hour electricity.

The Trabablas Interchange isn’t just infrastructure — it’s the perfect symbol of our Second Republic: shiny from far away, crumbling up close, and costing taxpayers far more than it’s worth.

In the end, we’ve built something truly historic — a bridge between two roads, and between reality and whatever fantasy land our leaders inhabit, where US$88 million disappears without a trace.

Future generations will look at Trabablas and know exactly what corruption looks like when you give it a concrete mixer and unlimited access to state coffers.

The only question remaining: when this inevitably falls apart in a few years, which connected Chigananda will get the “refurbishment” tender?

Place your bets now — the house always wins.