First Lady secures 10 vehicles for Women’s League

Zvamaida Murwira Harare Bureau
THE First Lady Cde Grace Mugabe has secured 10 vehicles and party regalia worth $55,000 for the Zanu-PF Women’s League to be distributed in the country’s 10 provinces.

Cde Mugabe, who is the secretary for the Women’s League in the Politburo, said she would soon unveil several empowerment projects in all provinces as part of fulfilling government’s promises under the economic blueprint, Zim-Asset.

The First Lady said she had also engaged the Indonesian government for handicraft and food processing projects in Zimbabwe to be implemented on a government-to- government arrangement.

She said this in a welcome address to women at the Zanu-PF Women’s League national executive council meeting at the party’s headquarters yesterday.

On the vehicles, Cde Mugabe said provincial chair ladies of the party’s Women’s League would be handed the vehicles whose delivery was expected in two months.

“As provinces, it will then be your responsibility to fuel the vehicles and service them,” she said. “The vehicle is not for the provincial chairperson to conduct her family business, but to conduct party business.”

The First Lady said she would leave her works to do the talking. She said she was different from other politicians who were in the habit of inviting journalists when they were donating trinkets.

“I’m the kind of person who likes working quietly,” she said. “Because there are some among us who if they donate a needle, they invite ZBC and journalists from the print media.

“Instead I calculate and ask myself whether what I’ve asked the journalist to cover is worth it considering the distance travelled and depreciation of his vehicle through wear and tear,” she said. “All that distance the journalist has travelled just to report about someone donating a needle.

“At times we’ve got this tendency to abuse journalists. Yes, we complain that they write bad about us, but at times we abuse them.”

The First Lady said she settled for party regalia when China’s All Women’s Federation asked her to choose items worth $55,000 during President Mugabe’s State visit to Beijing last year.

The decision was made after she conferred with fellow Zanu-PF national executive members back home.

“I’ve also engaged the Indonesian government to implement handicraft and food processing projects in Zimbabwe, but these will be on government-to-government arrangement. The Women’s League will make sure that its members benefit from the projects,” she said.

“Where disbursements of loans to groups will be the mode of project implementation, we expect the leadership not to abuse their influence at the expense of the grassroots cadres who elected them,” she said.

“Repayment of loans should be made religiously as this makes the programmes sustainable through revolving funds.”

Women’s participation in government programmes would be enhanced considering that women constituted 52 percent of the population, said Cde Mugabe.

“As the new leadership, we’ll strive to ensure that the Women’s League benefits from government programmes such as the Brazil-More Food Mechanisation Programme, land redistribution programme, fertiliser processing, housing development cooperatives, with a view to uplift the standard of life for its members,” she said.

“It’s in the same vein that I’m calling upon you all to identify business opportunities in the provinces and make recommendations.”