dyton mupawaenda
Richard Mahomva
POLITICS must carry a humanist emotion that is underpinned by love for the country.
The politician must be one who genuinely loves and is willing at all costs to serve the people.
The desire for such leadership is informed by the fact that politics must culminate in tangible socio-economic transformation of the lives of the governed. Therefore, when people go to cast ballots, they vote for good health systems, good education, good roads, good housing. The list is endless.
The August 23 election is a reminder that we need politics that humanises the ordinary person.
Politics that dignifies hardworking citizens and punishes laziness.
Politics that advances equal access to basics for the rural child and the one in Borrowdale.
Politics that rewards innovation, honesty and diligence, and suppresses nepotism. While these demands by citizens to politicians are very clear, at a humane level, we must never allow our partisan ideological contradictions to dissuade us from loving each other.
We are all citizens of this nation we call home. Our split patriotic notions to national belonging must never be a justification for us to unleash violence on one another.
We need the politics of love to unequivocally bind one unto the other. We need politics of genuine brotherhood and sisterhood.
Such is the godly premise for the future of true patriotism.
As the 2023 harmonised elections advance towards a satisfactory climax, those participating in the process must remember that their service to national interest must just be emotively pivoted on patriotism.
Beyond partisan prejudices and limitations, our healing rests in godly political leadership.
May we not just send political celebrities to office. May we have God-driven leaders in power after August 23. Zimbabwe needs leaders with a track record of excellence.
ZANU PF is that party that, over the years, has experientially constructed the very idea of the nation.
The party’s governance proficiency or lack of it (depending on one’s partisan analytical standpoint) is the only benchmark for good governance as we determine the political future of Zimbabwe.
As the election approaches, many are asking: What is ZANU PF going to do differently after receiving its new mandate, which it has failed to do in the past?
For me, the correct question to ask is: What has the ZANU PF-led Government done for Zimbabweans, especially since the inception of the Second Republic?
Whether one supports or utterly dislikes ZANU PF, there are reforms associated with the party in modelling the status quo.
Under the auspices of the Zimbabwe is Open for Business trajectory, the nation’s fortunes for industry and commerce are growing.
Local and foreign direct investment is strengthening our economy from the remnants of post-land reform isolation by the West. If anything, the last decades of isolation have generated a strategic alternative turn to self-reliant economic measures.
The anti-land reform imperialist-generated crisis has produced alternative allies and new sources of capital for Zimbabwe.
The Zimbabwe Investment Development Agency (ZIDA) was also formed to enhance the ease of doing business.
Zimbabwe’s export market has been undergoing exponential growth since 2017. The central bank also introduced a foreign currency auction system to subsidise industry and commerce’s external transactions and general importation of goods. The establishment of the largest steel plant in Africa is in Zimbabwe — Manhize — and is another indicator of a new capital flow outside dependence on traditional credit lines.
This multi-million-dollar project will increase Zimbabwe’s steel production for the global market for a century ahead of us. Lithium beneficiation has also taken an advanced turn over the past months.Zimbabwe is expected to have a US$12 billion mining industry by 2030 due to the targeted beneficiation programme for the sector.
Agricultural growth has been achieved through strategic climate-proofing innovations directly funded by the Government.
As a result, Zimbabwe will be food-secure from now until 2026.
Agricultural mechanisation has also reached unprecedented heights, courtesy of the Government’s partnership with Belarus.
Road rehabilitation is a monumental mark of the Second Republic’s efforts. The health sector has been strengthened to the extent of providing high mitigation measures amid the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Zimbabwe’s fight against HIV/AIDS has recorded massive success in terms of increasing access to anti-retroviral medicines and reduction of the prevalence rate.
Record-breaking strides in the fight against tuberculosis is another eminent success of the Second Republic.
Institutionalisation of the devolution policy, as demanded by the Constitution, is another key feature of Zimbabwe’s governance transformation.
The establishment of the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission and the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission depicts the State’s commitment to good governance.
Since 2018, Government expenditure was significantly reduced through the introduction of cost-effective budgeting.
A robust debt minimisation approach has been deployed through Treasury.
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) has increased its gold reserves consolidation in the past five years.
Government has subsidised all energy imports.
Revenue has been channelled towards infrastructure development, the health sector and social welfare.
Sadly, Zimbabwe’s economy has suffered damage from excessive exchange rate speculation since 2019.
This shows that our economic challenges are not caused by failed economic management models.
Instead, we suffer from market force contradictions inflicted by business entities benefitting from the RBZ’s foreign currency auction system and yet index their prices on illegal market rates. Our economy has suffered speculative shocks, whose purpose is to create public despondency.
It is not a mistake that our currency’s stability is mainly under threat against the backdrop of an impending election. This visibly indicates that our economic challenges are political. This market contradiction is glaringly contested by the continued increase in the manufacturing of local goods, courtesy of the new business-friendly environment created by the Second Republic.
For the past five years, Government has at least commissioned or launched a minimum of five livelihood development projects in every province. These are among the few policy tangibles that demonstrate the incumbent’s well-acquitted tenure of service in the past years.
Zimbabweans must bank on memory and reflect on some of these milestones as the nation heads towards August 23.
Richard Runyararo Mahomva is the director for international communication services in the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services. He writes in his personal capacity.
Tinaye Agere
Online Reporter