Andrew
Chief Fortune Charumbira is a tall man who is given to long speeches. If you so much as give him the mic, he will passionately speak for hours on end.
He was at it again at the just-ended ZANU PF 7th National People’s Congress, where he riffed on how President Mnangagwa had dexterously worked the diplomatic channels to canvass support for him to become president of the Pan-African Parliament.
It was not in vain.
Chief Charumbira won big, garnering 161 of the 203 votes that were up for grabs during elections held in Midrand, South Africa, on June 29 this year.
The magnitude of his win is even more emphatic considering there were 13 abstentions and 11 spoilt votes.
With the triumph, which helped unclasp North and West Africa’s stranglehold of the presidency, he made history by becoming the first person from Southern Africa to lead this august continental body.
Asked by a peeved Sophie Mokoena of the SABC why Africa had supported Chief Charumbira’s candidature, the firebrand Julius Malema had a fitting response.
“Charumbira, among all of us here, is the most experienced person from our region. He has been with the institution; he knows the ins and outs; he knows the weaknesses of the institution; he knows areas that need to be fixed. And we cannot, on the basis of party politics, then overlook the necessary capacity which will take this institution forward.
“Therefore, for us, it was not an issue ZANU PF or MDC — that question is neither here nor there. It’s about, as we sit here, which one of us is best suited to take the institution forward, and we found him to be one of the most capacitated leader who will take us forward,” explained Malema.
He could as well have been talking about President Mnangagwa in the same way Chief Charumbira recently described to us the diplomatic chutzpah and grandmastery — honed over decades in politics — of the man who currently sits at the helm of the Second Republic.
As Bishop Lazi always tells those who care to listen, President Mnangagwa is a rainmaker, whose consequential diplomatic influence has managed to reconfigure our foreign policy in a way that is already unlocking massive economic benefits for Zimbabwe.
Nowhere has his economic diplomacy been more rewarding in the past five years than in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). You see, only after the advent of the new political administration did Zimbabwe formally establish diplomatic relations with the UAE.
In one of the most notable developments, in December 2018, the then ruler of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan — who unfortunately passed away in May this year — issued several federal decrees to establish the UAE Embassy in Zimbabwe.
The embassy was duly opened in 2019, while Zimbabwe opened its own embassy in Abu Dhabi in 2021.
And the deepening relations have come with demonstrable material benefits.
In the two-year period to 2021, trade volumes between Zimbabwe and UAE doubled to US$1,6 billion.
The trend spilled into this year, with exports to Abu Dhabi exponentially rising to US$1,2 billion in the first seven months of the year (January to July) from US$802 million in the same period a year earlier.
It also pushed our overall exports in the period to US$3,7 billion from US$3,2 billion, setting the country on a solid path to record exports again this year. Little wonder the UAE is now Zimbabwe’s second-largest trading partner after dislodging Zambia.
This is the quintessential hallmark of economic diplomacy — being able to milk economic gain from cordial relations.
Lighting the future
President Mnangagwa has similarly worked his magic by building relations between Zimbabwe and Rwanda from the ground up over the past five years.
This culminated in the first Joint Permanent Commission on Co-operation hosted by Rwanda between March 16 and 18, 2021, where Harare and Kigali explored new areas of bilateral co-operation in finance, defence, environment, natural resources, agriculture, science and technology, as well as tourism.
Of late, there has been a lot of toing and froing between the two countries by both the public and private sector.
And perhaps the most significant development has been the export of human capital through the first batch of 160 teachers from Zimbabwe that landed in Rwanda last month.
But, as Rwandan President Paul Kagame prepares to visit Zimbabwe, Bishop Lazi’s interest has been piqued by the December 2020 agreement signed between Rwanda Energy Group (REG) and Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) to establish co-operation in sharing expertise in the energy sector.
Some of the fruits of this diplomatic initiative and masterstroke are now there for all to see, as Harare is literally being lit up through the ongoing major street-lighting project, under which 1 202 street lights will be installed through an alliance among Harare City Council, ZESA and REG.
It is quite a momentous development, as some of the lights are being switched on for the first time in three decades, helping pedestrians and motorists navigate treacherous roads that have been progressively rotting away ever since the opposition took over the reins of our towns and cities.
The progress currently underway is the result of visionary and mature leadership that is now extricating Zimbabwe from the economic morass of the past two decades.
Little by little and stride by stride, our beautiful country is being restored to its former glory. Job 12:12 teaches us that “Wisdom belongs to the aged, and understanding to the old”. Proverbs 11:14 also says: “A city without wise leaders will end up in ruin; a city with many wise leaders will be kept safe.”
This is why Bishop Lazarus trusts mature, wise and elderly men and women at the helm of critical State institutions, because, as Julius Malema says, they have the experience, they know the ins and outs of institutions, they know areas that need to be fixed and are best suited to take the institution forward.
This is why critical State organs and institutions in economies such as America are staffed with hoary men and women.
Yet they want us, in this part of the world, to elect youthful leaders who are not only bereft of the intimate knowledge of complex world politics, but are also blissfully ignorant of statecraft.
Wasted years
Well, as the street-lighting project takes shape, the opposition-run Harare City Council is now unashamedly riding on President Mnangagwas coattails; even gloating about a project they do not have an idea how it started.
This is not surprising for a local authority whose only accomplishment in the last five years has been to rehabilitate the George Hartley public swimming pool in Mbare. Kikikiki.
The Government has had to bail out the local authority by taking over the rehabilitation of some key roads in and around the city after they were declared a State of Disaster.
It has even put nurses in some council clinics on the Government’s payroll to avoid a total collapse of primary healthcare services in the city. As Bishop writes this, most suburbs in the capital have gone for more than a week without water. Mountains of garbage continue to pile up in our neighbourhoods, including the central business district.
The ancient traffic lights in the capital seldom work; in fact, nothing in the city ever works. The most telling and enduring example of failure by Harare City Council is Africa Unity Square, which is often unkempt and strewn with litter.
Street kids occasionally take a dump in the park, leaving an unpleasant surprise for those who dare take a chance to wander in it.
Using the park as a thoroughfare at night is an invitation to be mugged, as no one cares to repair the lights.
So, if the city fathers and mothers cannot do a decent job in taking care of that mere square, how then can they be expected to give us world-class roads, clinics and schools, routinely collect garbage and put up modern and functional street lights, among other critical duties expected of them.
Phew!
It seems these chaps have done quite a fantastic job of villagising our cities.
Not that there is anything wrong with a village — the Bishop actually grew up in the village — but the village should be found in the village, not in cities.
While there has been notable progress elsewhere, our cities have been stuck in a time capsule due to thoroughly inept and clueless councillors. We have just lived through five wasted years.
As development has become the zeitgeist of this new political epoch, we really have to do something — anything — to liberate our towns and cities, lest they be condemned to the Stone Age by this brood of politicians who only lust for power.
Bishop out!
Online Reporter