The Bird Didn’t Land — It Crashed: Polisile Ncube-Chimhini’s Exit Ends an Era of Impunity at ZIMURA
- Southerton Business Times
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
The bird hasn’t just landed. It has crash-landed straight into the cold reality of accountability. After nearly three decades of treating the Zimbabwe Music Rights Association (ZIMURA) like a personal estate, Polisile Ncube-Chimhini finally stepped down on February 10, 2026. This was no dignified retirement. It was a strategic retreat, forced by the weight of a fraud conviction, a High Court ruling, and relentless pressure from musicians who simply refused to stay silent.
Let’s call it what it is: the walls closed in.
Pressure Works Ask the Musicians
For years, artists complained of receiving laughable royalties, sometimes as little as US$41 for chart-topping music, while ZIMURA’s leadership remained untouchable. That silence broke spectacularly.
Led by the Zimbabwe Musicians Union (ZIMU), artists pushed back hard. Reports from the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC), police investigations into suspicious property disposals, and open dissent from board members such as Dereck Mpofu, Gift Amuli, and Joseph Garakara exposed what many called “phantom elections” and a governance structure built on smoke and mirrors.
When even insiders start pulling the curtain, the show is over.
Unfinished Business: The Secretariat Is Next
The exit of Ncube-Chimhini does not close the chapter it opens the next one.
Musicians are clear: the entire secretariat must go.
Henry Makombe, the deputy director, may be eyeing continuity, but artists see complicity. Remaining in office after years under a leadership now described as “predatory” is a hard sell. Trust doesn’t survive by association.
Goodchild (Alexio Gwenzi), ZIMURA board spokesperson, spent much of 2025 dismissing artist grievances and publicly defending a now-tainted administration. When the captain abandons ship, the spokesperson usually doesn’t get promoted; they get questioned.
Social Media Didn’t Mourn, It Celebrated
The reaction online was less obituary, more victory lap. Among the most shared sentiments:
“Thirty years of collecting, zero years of distributing. Goodbye.”
“Turns out the Executive Director post didn’t exist. We’ve been paying a ghost.”
“Selling artists’ flats while paying crumbs? Never again.”
“Resigning doesn’t cancel subpoenas.”
“The bird is gone — now clean the nest.”
Subtlety was not invited.
Resignation Does Not Equal Redemption
Legally, nothing disappears.
The fraud conviction from July 2025 for submitting falsified documents to the High Court still stands pending appeal.
ZACC investigations into the Avondale flats property disposal remain active.
Audit challenges raised by ZIMU, including undisclosed criminal convictions and unsigned reports, continue to raise red flags.
Stepping down removes a title, not liability.
The Bottom Line
This is not about one individual. It is about a system that fed on silence and underestimated the patience of artists.
The musicians won round one. They are not stopping now.
You can resign from office.
You can’t resign from accountability.
Polisile Ncube-Chimhini Exit
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