Online Reporter
Justifiably, President Mnangagwa is proud of what has been achieved at the family’s, Pricabe Farm in Kwekwe, and likes to use examples from the very practical farm as a way of showing how he thinks and how he believes anyone building up a business should look at life.
Pricabe is no giant ex-colonial estate, but rather what is described as a medium-sized farm of around 405 hectares, about a third the size of the standard colonial settler farm in the east of the country and a sixth the size of one in the west.
But he has intensively developed Pricabe, heavily mechanised it and continually aims for ever-higher sustainable productivity, and the annual value of its output must exceed what almost all those large farms managed.
The President and his younger brother, who between them are the active top management of the farm, have built up a well-run, innovative and profitable enterprise, all those things that he wants to see in every enterprise throughout Zimbabwe.
And, he has that excellent example of his own family farm to show he is no mere theorist, but practical.
In a visit by Cabinet ministers he hosted yesterday, the President pressed one of his main thrusts, the pursuit of excellence and a willingness to learn from both your own successes and failures and even more importantly from the successes and failures of others. That way you will continually do better.
No one can know it all, but if, as he stressed, you are looking at those better than you, not in jealousy, but as examples you can learn from, then you also will be doing better.
The objective is to at least equal the best.
This approach has served Zimbabwe well during the Second Republic. There have been a wide range of economic and social achievements with sustained and continued economic growth now predicted by all responsible agencies and the only real questions being how fast will that growth be.
While the President has obviously been overseeing this progress, he has not been afraid to bring into the top ranks of Government, both as Ministers and as senior civil servants, a lot of talented people with some very good ideas and a capacity for hard work, two essential characteristics required.
Sometimes complications arise, yet the President and the sort of people he relies on have become adept at untangling these, learning why something happened or did not happen, and then building on the successes and switching away from tactics that did not really work.
The annual performance reviews of those in the top jobs in State service are part of that process of let’s do better every year.
The Government, and the President, have also been far closer than previous administrations to successful businesspeople and investors in the private sector, and have shown their willingness to listen to problems, especially the man-made problems, and seek solutions.
The whole revision of the regulations governing business were driven by this, removing over-regulation that no longer was efficient or had lost the reason for its promulgation years ago, but also learning from the mistakes of countries that dumped what was needed with what was not.
So Zimbabwe has been retaining in usually revamped and more effective form the safeguards for health, safety, a decent environment, a well-run financial and banking system, and adequate labour laws.
We come back to what the President was stressing over the weekend when musing on his farming operations: learn from what others are doing, learn from how you apply advice, learn from successes and mistakes.
Every year you should be doing better if you follow that route, and that is another main example that the President likes to stress. He is also very keen on inclusion and wants people to learn from each other.
The example he used was from farming, with farmers sharing agricultural knowledge and skills and learning from each other locally and regionally, seeking to emulate and then become the best.
He also stressed, and considering his involvement with building up the youth this is important, that learning is lifelong and continuous activity.
Life does not end with a certificate or diploma, but must all the time be open to new ideas, new practical ways of implementing those ideas, seeing how others are doing this and being willing to be part of the general advance.
