The Ghost Workforce: How Fake Identities and Informal Recruitment Are Undermining Workers’ Rights in Zimbabwe

By Leonard Mhute

Zimbabwe’s employment landscape is increasingly confronting a disturbing phenomenon that deserves urgent national attention: the alleged use of informal recruitment channels, fictitious worker identities, and undocumented employment arrangements to create what can aptly be described as a “ghost workforce.”

Recent reports alleging that certain employers and unregulated employment agents recruit desperate job seekers without proper documentation, place them on internal registers under fictitious names, and subsequently deny that an employment relationship ever existed when disputes arise should concern every responsible employer, regulator, labour practitioner, and policymaker.

If established, such practices are not merely administrative irregularities. They raise serious questions surrounding fundamental labour rights, corporate governance, statutory compliance, fraud, operational accountability, and access to justice across the country.

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**When the Worker Becomes Invisible**

The employment relationship does not begin and end with a name appearing on a formal payroll.

In practice, an employee may report for duty every day, work under the direct supervision of a manager, use the employer’s tools and premises, receive remuneration, and perform productive work for months or even years. Yet, when a dispute arises, the employer may seek to rely on the absence of the employee’s name from its official records to deny that the person was ever employed.

This creates an extremely dangerous precedent. A worker who has performed actual labor may suddenly find themselves told that they are legally nonexistent because the employer’s internal records do not reflect their true identity.

That is where the concept of the “ghost worker” becomes particularly troubling: the person is physically present and economically productive, but administratively invisible. The danger is greatest for workers recruited through informal agents, particularly those who are economically vulnerable and may accept employment without demanding written contracts, payslips, or proof of registration.

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**The Law Cannot Be Defeated by Paperwork**

From a labour-law perspective, an employer should not assume that the absence of a formal employment contract or accurate payroll entry automatically extinguishes the reality of an employment relationship.

Section 65 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe guarantees fundamental labour rights, including the right to fair and safe labour practices, fair standards, and a reasonable wage. It also recognises the right to just, equitable, and satisfactory conditions of work. These constitutional protections cannot sensibly be reduced to a mere question of whether a worker’s name appears correctly on a payroll.

The Labour Act [Chapter 28:01] further establishes statutory protections governing employment relationships, unfair labour practices, termination of employment, and dispute resolution.

Consequently, where a worker alleges that they were employed, the critical legal question should not simply be whether the payroll contains that specific name. The broader, substantive question centers on what the actual employment relationship between the parties truly was.

Determining who recruited the worker, who controlled the work, who set working hours, who supervised daily tasks, who provided the tools, who paid remuneration, and who ultimately benefited from the labour will reveal the reality of the relationship even where documentation is defective or deliberately manipulated.

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**The Recruitment Agent Problem and Corporate Governance**

Recruitment is a legitimate and necessary function in the labour market. However, where intermediaries operate outside the regulatory framework, recruit through deception, or deliberately circumvent lawful employment procedures, the consequences are devastating. The reported prosecution of individuals operating unregistered employment agencies serves as a reminder that recruitment cannot occur without accountability.

Furthermore, this issue is fundamentally a corporate governance failure. Every properly governed organisation must know who works for it, their terms of employment, who supervises them, how much they are paid, whether statutory obligations are met, and whether records accurately reflect the workforce.

A company that cannot accurately account for its workforce is exposed to severe legal, financial, operational, and reputational risk. Boards and senior management must regard workforce records as a core component of the organisation’s risk-management architecture. A payroll should not be treated merely as a finance document, but as a critical employment and compliance record.

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**Evidence, Accountability, and Protecting Dignity**

Where records have been manipulated, workers face significant hurdles proving employment. In such cases, circumstantial evidence becomes critical, including mobile money or bank transfer records, WhatsApp messages, internal electronic communications, work schedules, duty rosters, security gate registers, company uniforms, equipment, photos taken at the workplace, witness testimony from colleagues, and proof of direct supervision. This is why employees must be encouraged to retain their own records whenever possible.

While administrative errors occur and should be corrected immediately by responsible employers, the deliberate use of false identities to evade statutory obligations moves beyond ordinary HR administration into serious compliance violations.

Organisations must urgently strengthen employment controls by establishing documented recruitment procedures, conducting regular payroll reconciliations, carrying out due diligence on third-party agencies, executing periodic HR audits, and providing safe whistle-blowing channels. Concurrently, regulators must increase monitoring of informal recruitment networks and conduct targeted inspections in high-risk sectors.

At the heart of this issue is the dignity of work. A person who contributes to an organisation’s productivity must not become legally invisible simply because an employer failed to properly document the relationship. Zimbabwe needs a labour market built on transparency, accountability, and total respect for the law.

Leonard Mhute is a Managing Partner, LeeTend Consulting Group | HR Practitioner | Corporate Governance Expert | Independent Arbitrator he writes here in own capacity.