Simbarashe Namusi
Zimbabwe’s policy circus added a fresh act this week: a ban on tinted windows.
The star? Tafadzwa Muguti, Secretary for Presidential Affairs and Devolution, who stepped onto the stage declaring that all tinted vehicles—except VIPs and security convoys, of course—were now illegal.
For a moment, motorists panicked.
Should they rip off the film? Pay fines? Park their cars? But before anyone could reach for a razor blade, George Charamba – on X as @dhonzamusoro007—swooped in. His verdict? Muguti’s decree had “no basis in fact or law.” In other words, scrap it. The ban died quicker than a Zimbabwean bond note in a supermarket queue.
Justice Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi Wednesday also told the National Assembly that there is no law currently banning tinted windows on motor vehicles in Zimbabwe.
Here lies the problem: pronouncements are not law. Statutory Instruments are. Zimbabwe already has one—SI 129 of 2015—which says windows must allow “clear, undistorted vision.” In plain English: don’t drive blind. Muguti, therefore, wasn’t inventing a wheel. He was inventing hot air.
But was Muguti wrong in his hot air invention moment? maybe not entirely. Zimbabwe is not the first country to look at banning tints for various reasons.
Sure, other countries regulate tint. Nigeria does. The UAE does and in America and United Kingdom it’s a serious crime that get you stopped by police fined or detained so truthfully, it’s not outrageous to suggest it. But procedure matters.
Governance is not theatre, stand-up comedy or a karaoke show where every official can play DJ and scratch their own track on national policy.
The Zimbabwean driving culture needs to be regulated and in the many measures needed, tint regulation is not far from the realms of reality. Tinted cars have a notorious tendency that must be reigned but on the other side, drivers argue that the tint protect their valuables and with removal of tint, smash and grab cases will rise – and the question the becomes, to tint or not to tint?
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe has bigger problems. Potholes that resemble swimming pools. A public transport system that is unreliable, unlicenced drivers and mushika -shika crews that have become a menace. These seem like pressing issues that need urgent attention but here we are debating the transparency of windscreens while the state itself is opaque.
Muguti may think he’s protecting citizens from crime. But is he seeing the country’s challenges through tinted glasses? The crime is real. But so is hunger. So is unemployment. So is despair.
When a government communicates like this—policy by press conference, cancelled by tweet—the real tint isn’t on our cars.
And so, dear reader, the question remains:
To tint or not to tint?
