AS visibly elated ZANU PF delegates trooped back to their respective homes after yet another successful National People’s Conference that was held in Bindura last week, there was no escaping the fact that the new dispensation is indeed living up to its billing as a development-oriented leadership.

Everything about that gathering had a touch of class and a flair that had waned in past conferences and congresses where the word development was no longer featuring prominently on the agenda.

This time around there was not only talk about development, it was visible from the moment one drove from Harare to Bindura.

The roads are being attended to, there is a healthy wheat crop that is ripe for harvesting and ultimately the market.

Most importantly the preparations for the 2021/22 summer cropping season are in full swing.

The new dispensation has prioritised food security and infrastructure development as key to Vision 2030 which seeks to make the country an upper middle class economy by that time.

At the current rate, there is little doubt that all this will be achieved way before 2030.

A record breaking 2,7 metric tonnes achieved in the gone by farming firmly puts the country on track to achieving its developmental goals.

Government has upped the tempo in consolidating the gains made in the revival of the agricultural sector through timeous availing of inputs and expansion of initiatives like Pfumvudza/Intwasa, among others.

Weather experts have predicted yet another good rain season, a boon to our thriving agricultural sector.

That is not all.

So far Government has spent ZWL$4 billion in rehabilitating and revamping more than 20 000 km of roads in the country under its Emergency Roads Rehabilitation Programme (ERRP) as it seeks to cover every track in the country.

Government has set aside US$400 million for the programme.

The new dispensation has also set its sight on developing an expansive rural economy that will cull rural to urban migration.

“This economy has surpassed the colonial performance epoch,” said President Emmerson Mnangagwa in his closing remarks at the Conference on Saturday.

“As a party and Government, we are going beyond agriculture and facilitating value chain development and beneficiation of all our produce. We are setting up rural industry systems and infrastructure. Under the Second Republic and in this new development era, programmes are being implemented to comprehensively modernise and make rural areas more attractive to live and work in.

“Development under ZANU PF will continue to leave no one and no place behind, in particular, those in urban areas where residents have been abused and neglected by corrupt and incompetent opposition led councils.”

He went on:

“ZANU PF is production, productivity and hard honest work. We are a rejuvenated party and nation on an irreversible course to improve the quality of life of our people. The party under the Second Republic is indeed about the people. It is about the economy. We are going beyond, ensuring its full utilisation for national food security.

“The party, under the Second Republic, has shown that it is the only party capable of delivering a better and more prosperous future for the people of our great country. This 19th National People’s Conference has clearly demonstrated that serving the people whole-heartedly remains at the centre of our party’s policies and programmes.”  

While the ZANU PF juggernaut was thundering in Bindura, its echoes were reverberating across the country and the globe with the opposition MDC finally coming to terms with the reality that it will be vanquished in the 2023 harmonised elections.

They engaged the services of one Hopewell Chin’ono and Afrobarometer to try and impose another GNU idea into the minds of focused and clearly disinterested Zimbabweans.

According to their ‘survey’, at least 58 percent Zimbabweans are in ‘favour’ of another GNU.

That is as ridiculous as it gets and we know why.

The reality, which we have said time and again and which has been whispered to the MDC by its handlers from Western embassies in Harare is that they should brace for yet another ZANU PF victory in the 2023 polls.

Never mind the infantile roadshows and the fallacy to create the impression of an opposition that is supposedly making inroads in so-called ZANU PF strongholds 2023 is a done deal.

The MDC in their numerous forms or formations are going to be walloped.

While at it, we can tell them with certainty that there is not going to be a GNU of any sort now and post 2023 elections.

ZANU PF needs to and is going to rule unhindered by the noise from the opposition and their Western handlers.

And the trajectory has been good so far.

It simply needs to be consolidated.

Talking about irritating noise, it has not escaped our attention that the noisy ZCTU president, Peter Mutasa is now jobless after being defeated by little known Florence Taruvinga, a ZESA technician who becomes the first woman to hold that post.

Taruvinga polled 73 votes to Mutasa’s 59 in elections that were held on Friday last week.

Typically, the Rhodesians, led by their offspring Douglas Coltart, son to Rhodesian stalwart David are crying foul, parroting flimsy claims that ZANU PF captured the polls and sponsored Taruvinga.

We will duly ignore the noise.

We hope that Mutasa, who has had several violent confrontations with Government on behalf of his handlers will finally join politics on a full time basis and prove his popularity to workers he had abandoned over the years.

It is also our humble prayer that Taruvinga will genuinely represent workers and steer clear from Mutasa’s infantile political activism.

As Zimbabwe continues steadily but surely with its development trajectory, we are elated by the fact that is moving in tandem with the ongoing systematic plucking of sell-outs in our midst from their wretched cocoons.

Let those with ears listen.