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Gibson Nyikadzino
THE tremendous economic growth and improvements currently going on in Zimbabwe can be attributed to what this writer terms “ED’s pragmatism” where no national projects should be left incomplete.
With results that have been realised to date, one cannot gain political mileage from attacking something good.
There is a legitimation for economic reform and provision of a roadmap to economic resuscitation and modernisation through “ED’s pragmatism.”
President Mnangagwa’s economic philosophy comes when the country was confronted with decisive problems that need citizens to seek truth from reality.
Such has led to pragmatic solutions in the infrastructure, energy, mining and agricultural sectors.
There are improvements!
However, as has become custom, this week opposition politician Cecilia Chimbiri toed her party’s fading philosophy of “see-no-good, speak-no-good and hear-no-good” about the governing Zanu PF party’s reconfiguration of the economy for national benefit.
Chimbiri this week said: “I don’t think a whole Government can actually pride themselves in fixing a road. The ruling Government’s priorities are misplaced.”
The remarks are not a surprise.
The “see-no-good, speak-no-good and hear-no-good” philosophy is a microcosm of the macrocosm.
The economy has been pulled from rubble. The risk is, individuals who wish any country’s chief executive officer to fail are insincere and equally wish harm and instability for posterity.
Then as Vice President, in June 2015 on a week-long visit to China, President Mnangagwa was sincere to tell China’s CCTV in an interview that international isolation had contributed to Zimbabwe’s loss of nearly two decades of development.
“You cannot say there are areas of our economy which we are happy with, infrastructure we are behind by 15-16 years, agricultural development the same, so we have to retool by acquiring new machinery so that we are competitive,” he said then.
He also emphasized that the country had to literally “bite the bullet” for it to catch up with its African peers and “bring Zimbabwe back to the table of nations..
Without doubt, Zimbabwe’s development progress had been tainted and stained by a myriad challenges.
President Mnangagwa’s administration has made a deliberate plan to invest the country’s resources in several projects, among them development of infrastructure, road construction, rehabilitation and reconstruction, expansion of electricity projects and water provision through calibrating the National Matabeleland Zambezi Water Project for take-off, among others.
Infrastructure is crucially important to foster the country’s economic development and prosperity. In economics, one of the most important subjects is to increase economic development, growth and the welfare of society.
Because economic development has widely become a priority, it also represents important opportunities for building peace in the country.
Economically, boosting infrastructure development is one proven way that enhances inclusive growth and also reduces poverty.
There surely is a very strong positive correlation between a country’s economic development and the quality of its infrastructure.
There is a consistent failure, to be honest, in the opposition. Reality is because the opposition is losing political ground, they now turn to spreading lies.
Recently in Zambia, opposition politician Nelson Chamisa lived up to his reputation of phantom imaginations.
He wrestled with the powerful truth and lost when he tried to downplay Government’s Covid-19 vaccination programme.
Tendai Biti, too, has lived to the opposition’s contagious and foundational daily bread of lies.
In October 2019, he ‘predicted’ an implosion of the country’s economy. Additionally, he has exaggerated Zimbabwe’s challenges through claims that “79 percent of people are living in extreme poverty” and “Zimbabwe has lost US$14 billion through Treasury”.
The epidemic of lies ought to be cured, instantly.
No man has a good memory to become a successful liar. Chimbiri, Chamisa and Biti are surviving through the grief of politics of anger and irrationality.
President Mnangagwa has been clear that his administration’s priority is “economics over politics”.
Embracing economics over politics is the Government’s deliberate operating philosophy to encourage citizens to see national economic projects in profit terms.
Improved growth in the agriculture, mining and manufacturing sectors have led to an export-led nature in economic growth.
Randomly, the Matabeleland Zambezi Water Project, once complete, is set to drive industrial and domestic productivity in the Matabeleland North, Matabeleland South and Bulawayo provinces.
Access to basic water and sanitation increases economic benefits by protecting people from deaths and disease from drinking from contaminated water sources.
The opposition’s hostility to the transformative economic growth recorded today is set to have it lose thinking voters in the next election.
The anchor and bedrock of “the President’s pragmatism” is to solve the problems of feeding and providing employment to the citizens, stabilising commodity prices and ensuring appropriate financial work.
In Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith says: “The progressive state is in reality the cheerful and the hearty state to all the different orders of society.
“The stationary state is dull, the declining melancholy.”
For the previous two decades, Zimbabwe lost key and necessary developments that are addressed by “the President’s pragmatism.” Zimbabwe thrives to be on “the table of nations” and it will soon be.
The best cure for the epidemic of lies that have been perpetrated by the raged and angry against Zimbabwe’s progress is to implement more people oriented projects that improve livelihoods.
Zimbabwe must do what works for Zimbabwe.
Zanu PF is a people’s party and nothing can beat a revolution at the height of its powers.
Online Reporter