2017 will without doubt rank as one of the most interesting year in the history of our country.
We saw.
We heard.
And we carried history.
It was a year that redefined the country’s destiny.
A year from which we finally achieved a harvest enough to feed the whole nation.
We were left with a surplus for the first time since 2000.
All this is thanks to the highly successful Command Agriculture Programme.
The programme is now in its second year and points towards yet another bumper harvest that will see the country reclaiming its status as the breadbaasket of Southern Africa.
This was also the year that politics took precedence over the economy.
We witnessed a new politics that was driven by hate and antagonism.
Political upstarts redefined the country’s revolutionary Party, ZANU PF, and sent the country into a tail-spin.
Gains achieved over the years through liberation struggles were under threat.
The Party which has always been at the forefront of defending the nation and aspirations of the masses for the first time, was more concerned with the politics of individual power.
Founding principles that had over the years regulated the Party were suddenly relegated to the dustbins by the up-starts.
However, many are happy that the Party has finally found its footing.
The nation is once again back on the path to greatness.
We are now engaged in that struggle we have been waging since the days of Nehanda, the days of Lobengula, the fight to be a fully self-stainable people who are neither dependents nor beggars.
Challenges we might be facing but the gains we have achieved, which are reclamation of our land, control of our natural resources and empowerment place us in a unique position to develop and grow sustainably.
The dark air of uncertainty that loomed large over us has disintegrated, hope for a brighter future has suffused everyone.
The future looks bright.
But it does not have to only look bright.
It must be bright.
And this brightness has to transcend to the majority through hard work and dedication to the national cause.
We now have to come together as one people and put all our efforts together.
We need to look into the future with renewed vigour and valour.
Let us look ahead into 2018 and strengthen the seeds of positivity that we have planted in 2017.
The new President Cde Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa has laid a plan for what will be an unprecedented economic growth trajectory that will take the country where it belongs.
We are now on a cusp of bigger and brighter things.
Our foot is on the pedestal to accelerate us to the Promised Land.
All the gains, growth, beauty we anticipate require collective effort.
We need to build on the strength and success of the Command Agriculture Programme.
We need to rebuild our infrastructure that is in a state of dilapidation.
We need to embark on the much delayed dualisation of the Beitbridge-Chirundu Highway.
We need to harness the potential at Tokwe-Mukosi.
We need to complete and start new energy projects.
We need to reassert our position as the new global economic powerhouse that we have always been destined to be.
The future indeed looks bright.