*A Trojan Horse in Harare? The Alarming Implications of the US Embassy's $25 Million Shadow Payroll* The recent revelations about the United States Embassy in Harare’s decade-long illegal cash payment scheme are far more than a bureaucratic scandal - they represent a potential national security threat to Zimbabwe. Let’s be clear: this wasn’t just about bypassing red tape. This was US$25 million paid out in hard cash - in a single year - beyond the oversight of both the US Treasury and the Zimbabwean financial system. For context, 84% of these employees were already being paid via formal, traceable channels. So what then was the purpose of this separate, covert cash channel? The answer becomes more troubling when viewed through the lens of geopolitical strategy and regime-change playbooks that the US has deployed elsewhere. Unrecorded and unsanctioned cash creates the perfect conditions for funding subversive operations, manipulating civil society, and destabilising sovereign governments - all under the guise of diplomatic payroll. The US Embassy’s illicit conduct has raised critical questions: - Where did the rest of the money go? - Who authorised the unsanctioned disbursements within the embassy? - Why was such a system sustained for ten years - long after Zimbabwe had adopted dual currency systems and introduced stabilisation mechanisms? - Were these funds used to support regime change elements, protest actors, or local digital mercenaries? What is most telling is the immediate and frenzied defence of the embassy by known paid opposition influencers and social media trolls. Their knee-jerk reactions - before any public explanation from the US Embassy itself - point to one thing: they have something to lose if scrutiny intensifies. It suggests that these individuals may be part of the broader covert network that benefited from the embassy’s cash economy. Zimbabwe must consider the following uncomfortable but necessary possibilities: - The cash pipeline could have functioned as a conduit for parallel funding of NGOs or political actors whose allegiance is not to the Zimbabwean people but to foreign strategic interests. - The lack of documentation and authorisation is fertile ground for money laundering, intelligence operations, or the illegal movement of funds within or outside the country. - The pattern mirrors US operations in other nations where “aid” and “civil society support” masked covert destabilisation efforts. In this context, the embassy's justification - that Zimbabwe's economic instability necessitated cash payments - falls apart. If anything, such instability should have demanded greater transparency and tighter control. Instead, the US Embassy operated with impunity, creating a shadow economy within Zimbabwe’s borders - all without local or international accountability. This isn’t diplomacy. It’s dollarised subversion. The government of Zimbabwe - and the region at large - must treat this as a matter of sovereignty and security. The public deserves answers. Parliament must demand disclosures. And any networks of local actors complicit in this under-the-table cash circus must be investigated. Because if the Americans were able to disburse US$25 million in a year without paperwork, oversight, or consequence - what else have they been doing under our noses? Source: https://x.com/dereckgoto/status/1925091382172983648