admin
The delegation was led by Harare businessman Mr Temba Mliswa, who is the president of ZEEC.
Mr Mliswa was in the company of members of different organisations affiliated to his group.
They engaged in a lengthy discussion with Governor Mathema as they sought to convince him about the thrust and mission of their organisation.
In his presentation, Mr Mliswa said the membership of his organisation includes youths, war veterans, ex-detainees, students, disabled persons, widows, chiefs and women.
He said the objective of ZEEC was to bring a broad based approach to the indigenisation drive and ensure that all stakeholders benefit.
“Each affiliate group has given us a representative at provincial level and from here our idea is to ensure that the indigenisation programme cascades to districts,” said Mr Mliswa. “People were given the land and we have many other resources but people have not been empowered to exploit those resources.”
However, during the discussions Governor Mathema openly condemned the formation of the organisation, saying the country already had many organisations that were dealing with the same issue.
Governor Mathema said Zimbabweans were tired of the formation of new organisations.
“To me this sounds like you are forming another bureaucratic organisation and I am not so sure if you are doing the correct thing. We already have a lot of such organisations and we continue breaking away instead of working together,” said Governor Mathema.
“Often these organisations do not work together and they fight each other. The question I have is do we have to keep forming new organisations as a country? Who are we lobbying and are we not going to step on each others’ toes?”
Governor Mathema said the sprouting of new organisations was not healthy for the country and in the long run it was going to cause chaos.
He said Zimbabweans were keen on having a few organisations that work together and have a common goal of developing the nation.
“If we continue forming new organisations we risk being anarchic. This is the same as non-governmental organisations and churches. There are just too many of them. This trend makes us fail to concentrate on real issues as we focus on organisations,” said Governor Mathema.
“I do not see how we are going to achieve empowerment with all these organisations. Let us identify skilled people and help them get finance to run businesses. Strategically this is not the time to be forming organisations that attack each other.”
Governor Mathema bemoaned the demise of Bulawayo industries and called for concerted efforts towards their revival.
He said Government should indigenise the banking sector so that black people could access funding for recapitalisation.
Online Reporter