CLAIM: The Zimbabwean Government has announced the addition of a new public holiday, Munhumutapa Day, which will be celebrated on the 15th of September 2025. This significant announcement was made in terms of Section 2(1) of the Public Holidays and Prohibition of Business Act [Chapter 10:21], through General Notice 954 of 2024.
SOURCE: Various media reports
VERDICT: False
Various media publications have claimed that the Zimbabwe government has added Munhumutapa Day, set for 15 September, to the country’s public holidays. September 15 is President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s birthday.
Publications like Pindula, ZimEye and ZiMetro all claim that, ‘The Zimbabwean Government has announced the addition of a new public holiday, Munhumutapa Day, which will be celebrated on the 15th of September 2025. This significant announcement was made in terms of Section 2(1) of the Public Holidays and Prohibition of Business Act [Chapter 10:21], through General Notice 954 of 2024’.
The claims have been picked up by social media accounts here, here and here.
Some of the publications like iHarare attribute the claim to former cabinet minister and 2023 presidential candidate Saviour Kasukuwere.
Kasuwere posted, January 8, on X, ‘Public Holidays !!! Munhumutapa Day 15 September’.
He included an image showing a list of Zimbabwe’s public holidays. Neither the post nor the image give a source of the information.
The papers are falsely claiming that the new holiday has been gazetted under General Notice 954 of 2024.
This is false.
General Notice 954 of 2024 was gazetted on June, 21, 2024. It does not have Munhumutapa Day as part of 2025 public holidays.
Conclusion
There is currently no evidence that the ‘Zimbabwean Government has announced the addition of a new public holiday, Munhumutapa Day, which will be celebrated on the 15th of September 2025’. It is, however, false that, ‘This significant announcement was made in terms of Section 2(1) of the Public Holidays and Prohibition of Business Act [Chapter 10:21], through General Notice 954 of 2024’. General Notice 954 of 2024 makes no mention of Munhumutapa Day as part of public holidays in 2025. Those making the claims are using a cropped image that does not indicate where it was cropped from. It definitely is not from General Notice 954 of 2024. However, the law allows the President to declare any day a public holiday and he may yet do so.
