Chronicle Editor
Leonard Ncube, Victoria Falls Reporter
SEVERAL Memoranda of Understanding are ready to be signed under the 3rd Session of the Zimbabwe-Botswana Bi-National Commission (BNC), which is under way in Victoria Falls with 16 ministers from the two countries expected to arrive in the resort city today.
The Ministerial Conference scheduled for tomorrow will pave way for the official opening of the high-level bilateral conference by President Mnangagwa and his Botswana counterpart, Mokgweetsi Masisi on Friday.
Coming out of closed door-committee meetings here yesterday, BNC senior officials meeting co-chairpersons Ambassador James Manzou who is Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and Dr Gladys Mokhawa, who is Botswana’s Permanent Secretary for International Affairs and Cooperation, said the five MoUs were ready for signing.
The two countries had earlier come up with 43 MoUs that needed signing into agreements in an effort to foster enhanced bi-lateral relations on political, economic, social, defence and security issues.
About 20 of the MoUs have been signed while draft agreements on agriculture, child protection, water and gainful employment of diplomatic spouse are ready for signing this Friday.
There are four broader committees that are characteristic of the BNC namely; political and diplomatic, economic, social, and defence and security, and each has subcommittees.
These are meant to enhance bilateral cooperation and harmonise trade across all sectors, including the Small and Medium Enterprises, an essential component for economic growth in the two countries.
In his remarks to close the senior officials meeting yesterday, Amb Manzou said the meeting has laid a solid foundation for the future of the two countries with the hope of maintaining the momentum.
“As we conclude this segment of the third Session of BNC, I extend gratitude to the efficient manner in which we have handled deliberations. We have made some notable progress and we are happy with the MoUs and agreements that we are recommending for signature.
“Where we have reached an agreement let’s ensure we move to implementation because signing of agreements is not an end in itself,” said Ambassador Manzou.
He added that more needs to be done hence the need to continue working tirelessly.
In a follow-up interview, Ambassador Manzou said the smooth working relationship between officials from the two countries had seen them completing all deliberations on time.
“There are no sticking issues. The tone of the relationship between Zimbabwe and Botswana is set by our two leaders and therefore I can confirm to you that as officials we worked very harmoniously in the various committees.
“The evidence that the deliberations were very smooth is in the fact that this evening we have managed to conclude what we were supposed to continue with tomorrow morning and now have the recommendations that we will forward to our ministers tomorrow.
“That reflects the nature of the relationship between Zimbabwe Botswana and we have a list of 16 ministers from both countries led by the co-chairs of the Ministerial committee, which are the Foreign Affairs Ministers. We are expecting all those ministers to arrive starting in the morning,” said Ambassador Manzou.
“Both countries are guided by the two Heads of State and Government’s vision of leaving no-one and no-place behind.”
Dr Mokhawa concurred saying much of the work had been concluded on some of the outstanding issues where certain decisions were made towards signing some of the MoUs.
“We continued today with committee work and so currently we are confident that we will sign more than five MoUs but we don’t want to take the glory away from the Heads of State,” she said.
“The expectation was that we do the groundwork in terms progress of our interactions on outstanding issues, discuss and agree.
We had a very successful end to our meeting where we agreed on a lot of issues and I would say at this juncture that there are no sticking issues between the two countries.”
Dr Mokhawa said there was need to speed up implementation leveraging on technology, which provides unparalleled advantages.
The recommendations will be presented to the ministers who will deliberate on them for onward submission to the two Presidents. — @ncubeleon
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