adminThrough the land reform programme, former white-owned commercial farms were methodically partitioned into A1 and A2 tracts of farmland and redistributed to more than 300 000 landless blacks. Across the country, Zimbabweans are proud owners of arable land fit for sustainable crop production and animal husbandry.
In order to ensure productive utilisation of land the Government availed back up or support programmes for the resettled farmers. Chief among the Government’s back up programme was the provision of agricultural support implements and other inputs.
Under the agriculture support programme, pursued in earnest from 2000 to 2009 when the inclusive Government took office, new farmers received ploughs, harrows, combine harvesters, tractors, fertiliser and seed meant to ensure that they are assisted to productively utilise the land.
Since then the agriculture support facility has become synonymous with President Mugabe who wants to ensure that farmers are not only empowered but also assisted to productively utilise their land for both subsistence and commercial benefits.
From land redistribution, there has been a giant leap towards the promulgation and implementation of laws directed towards economic empowerment. The laws are aimed at compelling foreign-owned companies to sell some of their shares to indigenous Zimbabweans. The Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act seeks to compel companies to sell 51 percent of their shareholding to indigenous Zimbabweans.
Like revolutionary land reform programme, the indigenisation and empowerment programme has met stiff resistance and fierce criticism from some quarters. The resistance, mounted by the privileged white elite, seeks to derail and delay this programme which seeks to economically empower the poor Zimbabweans whose resources have been exploited and spirited out of their communities, leaving them and their lands poorer.
However, some residents and political leaders in Matabeleland region have been nagged by the snail-pace at which the indigenisation and empowerment programmes are progressing.
Speaking ahead of Zanu-PF’s 12th Annual National People’s Conference that started in Bulawayo yesterday, the Resident Minister of Bulawayo Metropolitan Province, Cde Cain Ginyilitshe Mathema told Sunday News this week:
“There is an urgent need for the indigenisation and empowerment programmes to be fast-tracked because as a nation we must always strive to own our economy.”
Cde Mathema, who is also Zanu-PF deputy secretary for information and publicity, said the issue of indigenisation and empowerment will be prominent on the conference agenda. The December 6-10 conference comes at a relevant moment for Bulawayo when the issue of the de-industrialisation of the host city is in everyone’s mind.
Cde Mathema must be lauded for noting that indeed the de-industrialisation of Bulawayo forms a critical part of the conference’s agenda. The people of Bulawayo and the region suspect that there is a shoddy scheme of political and tribal conspiracy to ensure that all the Matabeleland-based programmes meant to revive industries are thwarted.
The leaders must be hailed for launching the “Let Bulawayo Survive Campaign” leading to the allocation of US$40 million meant to recapitalise distressed businesses in Bulawayo. Having said that, the
people in the region are disturbed by the political bickering which suggests that the US$40 million was, in the first place, never meant for Bulawayo firms only.
The people of Bulawayo and Matabeleland as a whole suspect that there are some people perched high in political echelons sabotaging the revival and re-industrialisation of Bulawayo by refusing to join hands with other progressive leaders who want to revive the city.
The people in this region are aware that there are rigid and stiff-necked politicians who are merely concerned with their personal interests and political survival. These are the politicians and individuals who want to ensure that the release of this money was a cumbersome process. Even its disbursement modalities and applications mechanism remain wrapped in controversy.
The people of Matabeleland hope that the conference would discuss the discord over the US$40 million fund and solutions proffered. Bad and stiff-necked political saboteurs must be shamed.
The revival of Bulawayo cannot be turned into a political game. It is about economic empowerment and our destiny. Young people are disempowered. Firms are closing down. Hundreds have lost jobs. We cannot wait and watch any longer.
Cde Mathema is right; we need to fast-track the empowerment of Bulawayo people through the revival and recapitalisation of all the distressed and closed firms. Politics aside; youths need jobs like yesterday. The empowerment and indigenisation exercise will remain news until the people of Bulawayo are economically empowered through the revival and recapitalisation of their distressed industries.
Online Reporter