Zimbabwean billionaire Strive Masiyiwa directs Econet to create jobs for citizens returning from South Africa

Strive Masiyiwa wants his companies to help absorb a wave of Zimbabweans coming home. The billionaire founder of Econet has directed the telecoms group to step up job creation for citizens returning from South Africa, positioning his businesses to complement a government struggling to reabsorb them.

Econet Zimbabwe chief executive Douglas Mboweni said management had met several times with Masiyiwa to work out how the group could help. The plan leans on projects already in motion, accelerated to put people to work quickly. Chief among them is Econet Tech City, the roughly $1 billion technology hub Masiyiwa unveiled this year, where the company says fast-tracking construction could create about 2,000 short-term jobs as building ramps up.

The push extends beyond concrete and cabling. Mboweni said Econet would expand its AgriTech operations, which grow fruit for export to China, a move that could add hundreds of jobs, and he framed agriculture as a deliberate choice because it puts people to work fast. "We are not farmers, but we are putting money into agricultural initiatives because they are a quick way to create jobs," he said.

The largest numbers come from mobile money. EcoCash, the group's payments arm, plans to recruit 15,000 new agents by Christmas, and Mboweni said each new agent typically supports at least two jobs. Taken together, the initiatives are pitched less as charity than as a way to widen the group's own footprint while easing pressure on returnees.

The effort responds to a specific strain. Large numbers of Zimbabweans have been returning from South Africa, straining a domestic economy with few formal jobs to offer them, and the government has called on business to help. Masiyiwa's decision to answer that call publicly puts one of the country's most prominent companies at the center of the response.

The directive fits a familiar pattern for Zimbabwe's richest man, who has long framed Econet as an engine of national development rather than only a telecoms operator, from the Tech City project to his push into artificial intelligence and agriculture. Whether temporary construction and agent roles translate into lasting employment is an open question, but the immediate aim is simpler, to give returning citizens somewhere to land while the broader economy catches up.