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The college was constructed after Government secured a $98 million loan from the Chinese government.
In his brief to the President before the tour, Defence Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa said the NDC would act as the nation’s think-tank.
“The main role of the NDC is to act as a thinktank for the country and thereby contribute towards the enhancement of our national strategic design.
“Already the NDC has started off with a year-long pilot programme with students drawn from the ZDF and other security organs such as the ZRP, the ZPS and the President’s Department.
“This will be extended to other strategic Government institutions,” Minister Mnangagwa said.
He said the Chinese People’s Liberation Army had pledged to assist the college with furniture.
Zimbabwe Defence Forces Commander, General Constantine Chiwenga said the establishment of the NDC was a result of the Look East Policy enunciated by President Mugabe following the imposition of the illegal sanctions on Zimbabwe by Western countries.
“We attribute this phenomenal success story to the Look East Policy which is your (President Mugabe) brainchild,” he said.
“We have seen our relationship with the People’s Republic of China and especially us as ZDF, grow from strength to strength.”
ZDF Chief of Staff for Joint Operations and Command, Major General Nicholas Dube, thanked the President for mooting the idea to construct the NDC.
“The idea to construct the NDC was a result of your enquiries every time you officiated during the commandant staff courses on when we would have an institution like this,” he said.
Maj Gen Dube said following the President’s enquiries Minister Mnangagwa and Gen Chiwenga then created a board that was tasked with looking at the feasibility of establishing a defence college.
He said the board toured various countries that included China, Pakistan, Nigeria and Kenya to see how the respective countries’ defence colleges operated.
He said they later got a loan from the Chinese for the construction of the college.
Maj Gen Dube disputed claims that materials used to build the institution had all been sourced from China saying local companies failed to meet the demand.
Construction started in December 2010 but we had a number of challenges. We ran out of bricks and sometimes I had to personally call executives of brick companies but they failed to meet our demand.
“The next thing was cement, there was no cement company that could produce at the speed the construction was going,” he said.
He said at the peak of construction 100 000 bricks were required a day.
Maj Gen Dube said they also had labour disputes as a result of the long working hours undertaken to complete the project as some workers were unwilling to work overtime.
The NDC was constructed by Anhui Foreign Economic Construction.
The NDC comprises lecture rooms, students’ and lecturers’ accommodation, a gymnasium and sports fields among other amenities.
Construction was done with the assistance from the Ministry of Public Works and was handed over to Government last month.
Online Reporter