By Tawanda Chenana
WE, in the village, have no tolerance for lies. If you want your status to diminish, to soil your good name, engage in lying. In the village, we have no time for characters that seek to thrive or earn a living through spreading lies that harm everyone else so that they acquire personal benefits. And, in the village, since time immemorial, since the days of the liberation struggle, we have not been fooled, have never allowed ourselves to be hoodwinked and to sell our birthright. Those bent on destroying what we are building, what has been built, what will be built, through spreading lies and manufacturing poverty will not succeed. We smell you more than a mile away. It is not only President Emmerson Mnangagwa who is aware of those bent on causing havoc in the country by attacking our currency; those who want unfettered access to our minerals through having their puppets in power. We, in the village and across the country in towns as well, are fully aware of the opposition’s tactic, with the help of their handlers, of frustrating the citizens so that they rise up against the revolutionary ZANU PF through manufacturing poverty. “These detractors and their surrogates have never had the people of Zimbabwe at heart; our mass revolutionary Party is the only party with a vision for the future,” said President Mnangagwa. We are a few weeks away from the general elections and we know what the Second Republic has done, is doing, and shall continue doing. Definitely, there is no room for saboteurs. The main opposition party has always had a misguided belief that if they have the youths captured, they can sway the masses to turn against ZANU PF. However, the spirit of resistance remains in us. We endured hardships during the liberation struggle and never sold out — we will not begin selling out now. As the country marches on towards Vision 2030, we must maintain the ongoing development momentum being spearheaded by the Second Republic by voting for the ruling Party. Through comprehensive reforms undertaken since the ushering in of the new dispensation in 2017, the country is steadily reclaiming its space in the global comity of progressive nations — what we are experiencing today is manufactured poverty. Numerous high-impact investments, covering different sectors of the economy, have been harnessed amid innovative strides by higher and tertiary learning centres. Many are the tangible exploits of the ZANU-PF Government’s determined drive towards creating more job opportunities and improving ordinary people’s livelihoods. For instance, despite the adverse climate change impacts, growing public and private sector investments towards transforming the agriculture industry have seen the sector surpassing the US$8,2 billion target set under the National Development Strategy (NDS1-2021-2025) ahead of time. Under the Second Republic, the country is driving massive coal to energy development projects with the Hwange Power Station Unit 7 already completed. Hwange Unit 7 has come on stream, injecting 300 megawatts to the national grid which has significantly improved power supply in the country.
Several investments in coal to coke processing have been established in the Hwange area, Matabeleland North Province, which have bolstered mining output and export earnings with massive job opportunities along the value chain. The Lake Gwayi-Shangani construction, a key project meant to solve Bulawayo’s water problems and boost irrigation farming in Matabeleland region had been in limbo through successive administrations from 1912 and only took off under the Second Republic, which has channelled more Treasury resources to steer its steady progress. The country is also on the cusp of being a key oil-to-gas energy player in the region with the Australian Invictus Energy firm indicating improved commercially viable findings at its Muzarabani oil and gas exploration project. Through enhanced diplomatic relations with China, for instance, the Second Republic has also witnessed completion of the new Parliament building in Harare, constructed at a cost of US$100 million with funding from Beijing. Realising that the future of the world is anchored on science and technology, President Mnangagwa has championed the Education 5.0 policy to ensure Zimbabwe develops its economy through knowledge-based approache by its own people in line with the philosophy: ‘Nyika inovakwa nevene vayo/Ilizwe lakhiwa ngabanikazi’. In view of such development milestones, are we going to be fooled that we are wallowing in poverty, that the Government of the people has done nothing? Zimbabweans should reflect on these deliverables as an indicator of President Mnangagwa’s commitment to propel Zimbabwe to greater heights. The ZANU-PF Government has, in the past five years, succeeded in delivering tangibles. ZANU-PF has not cried because of sanctions but has looked internally and used local resources to develop our country brick-by-brick and stone-upon-stone. “Zanu-PF, as the only party that brought independence to this country, has national interests at heart. Let’s uphold values of peace, tolerance and unity among ourselves as we gear towards the elections,” President Mnangagwa is on record saying and we, in the village and elsewhere, couldn’t agree more.
