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Nobleman Runyanga
Correspondent
The May 23 edition of the 263Chat.com online publication carried a story entitled, “Zimbabwe’s participation at Davos questioned.”
The article was based on a statement issued on May 21, by a largely unknown lobby group, Fight Inequality Alliance (FIA), which sought to poke holes in President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s trip to the Swiss resort town of Davos for the ongoing World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, which is running from May 22 to 26.
The FIA website describes the organisation as “a growing global movement organising and mobilising to counter the excessive concentration of power and wealth in the hands of a small elite.”
While fighting inequality is very noble, my issue with FIA Zimbabwe is how the organisation sought to use the President’s trip to raise local issues, which could have been raised in various and relevant local fora for resolution.
My issue is how the organisation desperately sought to cast aspersions on the President discharging his mandate by attending a global meeting to which Zimbabwe was invited.
The way FIA Zimbabwe crafted its statement, a visitor from Mars would think that President Mnangagwa flew to Switzerland for shopping.
My concern is with a lobby outfit that seeks to earn Western donor funding through working against Government which is responding to an invitation to a forum that presents opportunities to partner with global players in its bid to improve the lot of its people.
The world respects the one who is working to eradicate poverty than the one who is using the poverty of the same people to fight the one who is doing something about it.
My issue with the organisation is with how it attempted to trivialise the trip and its importance to Government’s ongoing efforts to revive the economy and improve people’s lives after nearly 20 years of the late former President Robert Mugabe’s “go-to-hell diplomacy”.
For the information of the Angellah Mandoreba — co-ordinated FIA Zimbabwe, the Word Economic Forum annual meeting presents President Mnangagwa and his team with a golden opportunity to market the country to the global players who matter — the investors.
It is not a routine global meeting where world leaders take to the podium to read speeches.
The Davos meeting is about intimate engagements with stakeholders such as prospective investors, other governments, academics, economic experts and others.
The meeting presents the President and members of his delegation a chance to tell the world the Zimbabwean socio-economic story of how, without foreign aid, the country is bricking a firm infrastructural foundation which will undergird its ongoing economic turnaround efforts.
It is these trips, engagements and efforts that will move Zimbabweans out of the sanctions-induced poverty, which FIA Zimbabwe is using to earn filthy foreign funding.
It is the work that the President is doing at Davos that lifts people out of poverty.
Like most Western-sponsored organisations, FIA Zimbabwe would not wish to see any efforts to lift Zimbabweans out of poverty because, like local opposition parties, it shamelessly thrives on the suffering of Zimbabweans. The President will use the opportunity to tell global health stakeholders and interested potential investors of how the country, despite the debilitating sanctions, acquitted itself very well in fighting the Covid-19.
He will tell them of the investment opportunities in Zimbabwe which were unearthed due to the pandemic.
These include the manufacture of vaccines, medical drugs and health consumables.
The ongoing Russo-Ukraine conflict has wreaked havoc on the economies of most countries — developed and developing — as they depend on the two countries for some commodity or the other.
These include oil, wheat, crude cooking oil and gas, among others.
The disruption of these the supplies of these commodities has pressed home the urgent need for these countries to develop their own industries and agricultural sectors to substitute the Russian and Ukrainian imports.
For African countries, the war has proved how urgently they need to implement the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) so that the continent can be self-sustaining in terms of commodities especially given its rich endowment with resources.
This will also ensure that the countries can benefit from the huge market which is presented by the population of the continent that currently stands at 1,4 billion people.
It is for these reasons that President Mnangagwa co-chaired and participated in a AfCFTA breakfast session yesterday.
He co-chaired the breakfast discussion with Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi, Namibian President Hage Geingob, Rwandan President Paul Kagame as well as Nigerian Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
Only a Zimbabwean with an agenda against Zimbabweans can describe such deliberations as a waste of resources and a case of inequality.
FIA Zimbabwe exposed its desperation to milk the trip and earn a dirty dollar from its Western funders by bringing in issues that had nothing to do with the matter.
It claimed that the trip was “happening at a time Zimbabweans are unjustly and unconstitutionally heavily taxed when the rich and political elites in Zimbabwe are not paying.”
No irrefutable evidence was provided to buttress the claim.
If the organisation has issues with the taxation in the country and citizens’ compliance thereto, it did not have to wait for the Davos trip to complain about them.
The Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA) gladly welcomes anyone who has information tax evasion by any citizen or organisation in Zimbabwe.
The lobby group’s statement also complained of bloated delegations on trips such as the one that the President went on Sunday.
Its statement was issued on Saturday, a day before the President left for Switzerland.
Most people would take FIA Zimbabwe seriously, if the statement had been issued after the President had left and his delegation was adjudged as bloated instead of criticising him on the basis of past issues that include those of the President Mugabe era.
Two days into the trip and there were no complaints of a bloated Davos trip delegation. Desperation writ large.
FIA Zimbabwe also sought to whip the people’s emotions by complaining about the quality of investors who had interests in Zimbabwe.
It complained that “the quality of investors we attract since we have had cases of multinational corporations violating the basic principles of business and human rights with impunity.”
President Mnangagwa, addressing a Zanu PF rally at Pfupajena Stadium in Chegutu in March this year, made it clear that investors would not dictate terms to Zimbabweans.
He did not mince his words on the message that the welfare of Zimbabweans came first ahead of that of investors.
This was no idle talk meant to win the hearts of the electorate ahead of the March 2022 26 by-elections.
In November last year, Government revoked the mining licence of a Chinese mining entity, Heijin Mining Company after it attempted to dispossess the people of Kaseke Village of their ancestral land in pursuit of black granite mining activities in Uzumba.
It is, therefore, very clear that FIA Zimbabwe, like other anti-Government entities and detractors, has joined the band wagon of Western sponsored organisations to cast aspersions on President Mnangagwa, Zanu PF and Government ahead of the 2023 harmonised elections for the benefit of the opposition, Citizens’ Coalition for Change (CCC).
The so-called lobby group hoped in vain that its statement would incite Zimbabweans at home and abroad to stage protests against President Mnangagwa during the course of this year’s edition of the World Economic Forum annual meeting.
Fortunately, Zimbabweans have learnt from cases such as that of the #Tajamuka protest movement where ordinary members put in the work of staging pointless protests while the likes of Promise Mkwananzi creamed off all the funds donated by some Western embassies and organisations to pay them.
They refused to be used.
Even as the 2023 elections beckon, Zimbabweans should refuse to be used to vote for opposition politicians and political parties which are owned and funded by some Western countries for the purposes of advancing their imperialistic objectives.
Peter Tanyanyiwa
Online Reporter