By Kudakwashe Matizanadzo.
KARIBA –”Our lands were ravaged. We seek a new beginning”…, a leader of a group of refugees fleeing through the Mesoamerican rainforest said at the beginning of the 2006 Mel Gibson blockbuster movie, Apocalypto to Jaguar Paw and his father Flint Sky.
It is a line that speaks to Kariba today.
For two years, the Kariba Carnival and Business Expo has been sold as the event that puts the resort town on the map. On 28 October, Mopani Bay Resort will light up. Drums will roll down the main street, tour operators will lay out brochures for houseboats and tiger fishing, miners will pitch their produce and SMEs from Siakobvu to Harare will chase investors over a cold Zambezi Lager.
This year, the town is back in the headlines, albeit for a different reason.
On 11 August, the passenger ferry Mbuya Nehanda capsized on Lake Kariba in what became the deadliest boat disaster in Zimbabwe’s recorded history. The government-owned vessel was on its routine run to Chalala. Police said 97 people died, including children. Seventy-seven survived.
Organisers are now preparing to open the gates from 28th to 31st October with an estimated 5,000 plus visitors anticipated.
A celebration weeks after a tragedy needs careful handling. A young event with big ambitions.
The Kariba International Carnival & Business Expo 2026 – *KARIBA ALIVE* – is back, billed as four days of tourism, business, culture, networking and entertainment.
It is exactly what this resort town needs. It is also why it matters more than ever.
Just 78 days before the carnival opens, the lake that gives Kariba its life took lives 30 minutes out of this same harbour.
Organisers say this is more tBecausehan a carnival. It is a destination-investment platform and a recovery platform.
Set for 28-31 October 2026 at Mopani Bay Resort & Conference Centre, it brings together a cross-section of government ministries, local authorities, tourism and hospitality, financial institutions, telecommunications, mining and agriculture, development partners, SMEs, universities, cultural organisations and regional delegations.
In official literature, the event is meant to do three things.
First, destination visibility. To elevate Kariba as a premier tourism and investment destination, beyond the headlines of power cuts and lake levels.
Second, business growth. To create opportunities for investment, enterprises and productive partnerships.
Third, and most importantly, community impact. To stimulate local economic activity. In the backdrop of the August tragedy, stimulating local economic activity will ease the burden on a community still healing.
The format mixes boardroom and street. By day; exhibitions and investment forums. By night, a carnival procession, heritage showcases, a music gala and awards.
Organisers are urging early booking because exhibition space and accommodation in the small resort town are expected to fill quickly. Council expects thousands of visitors from across Zimbabwe and the region, with a strong presence from the KAZA TFCA – Zambia, Botswana, Namibia.
It is Kariba’s biggest economic moment of the year.
But no conversation in Kariba now starts without 11 August.
Tuesday 11 August 2026 at about 1pm, the RIDA-operated ferry Mbuya Nehanda (KF551) left Andora Harbour for Chalala, King’s Camp and Musambakaruma fishing camps. It was the only link for those communities – the road from Kariba to Siakobvu and Chalala has long been impassable.
Thirty minutes out, near Long Island, it went over. Rescue crews, police divers, soldiers and Kariba’s own fishermen pulled 77 people alive from the water. The captain died with his passengers.
Preliminary reports presented to Government pointed to overloading, insufficient life jackets, and a weather warning from Meteorological Services that morning advising small vessels not to sail.
As the Zimbabwe Union of Residents and Ratepayers Associations (ZURRA) said: “There is a stretch of water between Kariba town and the fishing camp at Chalala that thousands of Zimbabweans crossed every month without thinking much about it… There was one vessel… and when it sailed, people got on it.”
President Emmerson Mnangagwa declared it a national disaster. Police arrested Kariba RIDA district coordinator Ignatius Chiome (49) on charges of culpable homicide. Transport Minister Felix Mhona appointed a three-member Board of Inquiry led by Supreme Court Judge Justice Joseph Mafusire, with Commissioner Wiklef Makamache and Advocate Patronella Musarurwa, to establish seaworthiness, registration, capacity, crew competence and safety compliance.
The traditional leadership has set October for a cleansing ceremony at the lake.
The implications of holding a carnival 11 weeks after the disaster are profound, and double-edged – which is why the tone of KARIBA ALIVE is rejuvenation, not revelry.
The town is still healing. To dance without remembering would be tone-deaf, organisers know. But to cancel would be economic death. Kariba lives on tourism. From houseboats to lodges, fishing to tiger fish tournaments and conference tourism, Kariba cannot afford to sleep at this monumental juncture.
After the ferry disaster, cancellations spiked. The expo is a statement that Kariba is open, safe to visit and ready to rebuild.
The biggest investor question in Mopani Bay will not be about hotel occupancy, but lake safety. The new replacement ferry, MV Silverstone operated by Most High Ferries, has already started operating on Tuesdays and Fridays from Kariba urban to King’s Camp. It carries 60 passengers and four crew, but crucially carries 120 life jackets and floaters, almost double capacity, and two speedboats as escorts.
That vessel will likely be the most inspected exhibit of the expo. Tourists and investors will want to see that inland water regulation is finally being enforced under the Inland Waters Shipping Act [Chapter 13:06].
The ferry was overloaded because there is no road. Traders needed to move ice blocks for preserving fish, salt for kapenta drying, maize and building materials. The carnival’s business forum must therefore go beyond tourism brochures to infrastructure; roads to Chalala, reliable water transport, cold-chain investment, and telecoms for fishing communities.
The KARIBA ALIVE theme: Tourism, Enterprise, Investment and Growth now reads as a recovery plan.
If Kariba can host thousands safely, respectfully – with a moment of silence on opening night for the 97, with safety briefings alongside cultural briefings – it will do more than any press release to restore faith.
The gold panners of Kwekwe and Shurugwi are chasing a trophy. The boatmen of Kariba are chasing something more basic, the right to travel and return alive.
That is why this carnival matters more than any before it.
This carnival presents an opportunity to console the community and restore business confidence in the resort town whose economy is largely based on tourism.
If there is anyone to do that, it is the Ministry of Tourism and Hospitality led by the effervescent Hon Barbra Rwodzi, who has proven beyond reasonable doubt that she is capable of rising to the occasion time and again.
Together with the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) led by Dr George Manyaya, there is no reason to not believe the upcoming expo will bring back business and investor confidence to the resort town.
The HKD boss, Freeman headlines the entertainment line up. The Joina City and Shaina hitmaker, a fans’ favourite, will be ably supported by the crown prince of zimdancehall, Junior Spragga among other acts. Kariba might still be mourning, and rightfully so, but the line up will bring some smiles to the community.
As the expo draws closer, one just hopes it will indeed dry the tears and turn tragedy into triumph by bringing the much needed economic rebound as Karibians seek ‘a new beginning’.
