Workers win the right to refuse dangerous work

26 October 2026 · 4 min

Monday 26 October 2026: Zimbabwe's new Occupational Safety and Health Act lets workers refuse dangerous work without being fired. Also: an Apollo economist finds no AI payoff for big companies outside tech, a government fund backs 15 companies, and a drone flies medicines to Marondera.

Zimbabwe's workers win the right to refuse dangerous work

Workers wearing safety gear on a factory floor. Photo: EU-Ukraine cooperation, CC BY-SA 2.0, via flickr via Openverse.

President Mnangagwa has signed the Occupational Safety and Health Act into law. Workers can refuse work likely to put their safety or health in imminent danger, and they are protected from dismissal for doing so. An employer whose breach injures someone faces a fine of US$5,000, up to two years in prison, or both.

Workplace deaths rose 30% in the first half of 2026, from 40 to 52.

Unions say enforcement is what counts. "A law without enforcement mechanisms will allow people or companies or establishments to do as they wish," said Florence Taruvinga, president of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions.

Professor Richard Heron, visiting professor at the University of Surrey and Vice-President Health at BP until 2022, told the national safety conference in Victoria Falls on 9 October that enforcement is only part of the answer. "A compliance system is not an enforcement system," he said. "Enforcement is a piece of compliance, but actually we don't want people to comply to avoid the effects of enforcement. We want to create the incentives for people to comply." He gave the reasons: "We want to comply to protect our safety. We want to comply to protect our livelihoods. [We] want to comply to be a more profitable company as well."

The test is whether workplace deaths finally come down.

Sources: heraldonline.co.zw, zimbabwesituation.com, youtube.com, cognacity.co.uk, heraldonline.co.zw

Apollo economist finds no AI payoff for big companies outside tech

The Solow Building in New York City, which houses the headquarters of Apollo Global Management. Photo: King of Hearts, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Torsten Slok, chief economist at the private equity firm Apollo Global Management, says AI has not helped the bottom line of any big company outside the tech industry. In a recently published note, he found that profit margins and revenue per worker appear flat, with no evidence that AI is improving productivity.

He explained it this way: "AI may be a great calculator, but in business, intelligence is mostly judgment."

Sources: techcrunch.com

Government fund invests in 15 companies, three of them in food and milling

A worker operates a maize milling machine. Photo: Phantomassassinbb2811, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Industrial Development Fund, set up by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and managed by the National Venture Capital Company of Zimbabwe (NVCCZ), has invested in 15 companies across the country since it came online this year. The NVCCZ sits under the Ministry of Finance.

Three of the companies are in food and milling. NVCCZ chief executive Tino Kambasha explained the choice: "So, we are now going into a drought, so we think food and milling is key."

Sources: zimbabwesituation.com

Drone flies medicines from Harare to Marondera and brings a blood sample back

A different medical delivery drone, a Zipline model used elsewhere, on display. Photo: San Diego Air & Space Museum Archives, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

A drone has completed a two-way medical delivery trial between Harare and Marondera. On Wednesday 21 October, it carried medicines to Borradaile Hospital in Marondera, and on its return it brought a blood sample to HealthPoint's Upper East Road Diagnostics Laboratories in Harare.

Two companies ran the trial: Drone Solutions (Pvt) Ltd and HealthPoint. Over the round trip, the drone covered about 150 kilometres in 70 minutes.

Sources: zimbabwesituation.com

ZiG at 26.58 to the US dollar, gold at US$4,011 an ounce

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe building in the Harare skyline. Photo: Baynham Goredema from Johannesburg, South Africa, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The official ZiG rate, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe's interbank mid rate for Friday 23 October, is 26.58 to the US dollar.

On Friday, the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange All Share Index rose 0.45% to 481. On the same day, the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange All Share Index rose 1.1% to 276.9.

Gold is at US$4,011 a troy ounce on the spot market, up 0.4%.

Sources: rbz.co.zw, zse.co.zw, vfex.exchange, goldprice.org

Transcript

Richard Heron: Why do we want to comply? We want to comply to protect our safety. We want to comply to protect our livelihoods. want to comply to be a more profitable company as well

Nyasha: That was Professor Richard Heron, who used to run health at BP, speaking at Zimbabwe's national safety conference in Victoria Falls this month. Good morning. This is the Zimbabwe AI and Business Brief from Executive AI Studio, for Monday the twenty-sixth of October. I'm Nyasha, an AI presenter. Today, workers win the right to refuse dangerous work. Also: AI's missing payoff, a fund for fifteen firms, and medicine by drone.

Nyasha: We start with that new safety law. Our AI correspondent Farai has more.

Farai: Morning, Nyasha.

Farai: What you're hearing is a factory floor. Under the new Occupational Safety and Health Act, workers can refuse dangerous work without being fired. An employer whose breach injures someone can be fined five thousand US dollars or jailed for up to two years. Workplace deaths rose thirty percent in the first half of this year, to fifty-two.

Farai: Unions say enforcement is what counts. Here's ZCTU president Florence Taruvinga, read by an AI voice.

Florence Taruvinga (read by an AI voice): A law without enforcement mechanisms will allow people or companies or establishments to do as they wish

Nyasha: Sorry, Farai, is enforcement enough?

Farai: Not on its own, says Professor Richard Heron, who used to run health at BP. Here's what he told the national safety conference in Victoria Falls this month.

Richard Heron: a compliance system is not an enforcement system. Enforcement is a piece of compliance but actually uh we don't want people to comply to avoid the effects of enforcement. We want to create the incentives for people to comply.

Farai: The test is whether workplace deaths finally come down.

Nyasha: Farai, thank you.

Nyasha: In other news, Torsten Slok, chief economist at the private equity firm Apollo, says AI has not helped the bottom line of big companies outside tech. Here's how he explains it.

Torsten Slok (read by an AI voice): AI may be a great calculator, but in business, intelligence is mostly judgment

Nyasha: A government fund run by the National Venture Capital Company of Zimbabwe has backed fifteen companies this year, three of them in food and milling. Here's why, from chief executive Tino Kambasha.

Tino Kambasha (read by an AI voice): So, we are now going into a drought, so we think food and milling is key

Nyasha: And finally, a drone has flown medicines from Harare to Borradaile Hospital in Marondera, and brought a blood sample back to the lab. The trial on Wednesday, by Drone Solutions and HealthPoint, covered about a hundred and fifty kilometres in seventy minutes.

Nyasha: Now, let's look at today's numbers. The official ZiG rate is twenty-six point five eight to the US dollar; on Friday, the stock exchange All Share index rose zero point four five percent to four hundred and eighty-one; the Victoria Falls exchange rose one point one percent to two hundred and seventy-six point nine; and gold is at four thousand and eleven dollars an ounce, up zero point four percent.

Nyasha: The Zimbabwe AI and Business Brief is brought to you by Executive AI Studio. We build AI assistants for Zimbabwean businesses. Find us at executiveai.studio.

Nyasha: Sources for every story are in the episode notes. This brief was researched and written by AI. I'm Nyasha. Have a good week.