Makoni set for SADCC talks

The Herald, 18 June, 1982

THE Minister of Industry and Energy Development, Dr Simba Makoni, leaves Harare on Sunday to attend a two-day Southern African Development Co-ordination Conference (SADCC) ministers’ meeting which starts in Luanda next Friday.

The meeting will review development projects in the region, discuss the appointment of an executive secretary, the 1982-83 budget, the financial contributions from member states and the establishment of a regional secretariat, says a ministry statement.

Zimbabwe is expected to brief the meeting about progress towards the establishment of a regional food security project, the capacity to print security items such as bank notes, traveller’s cheques, postal material and travelling documents, and the general area of co-ordination.

Mozambique would discuss transport and communications; Angola, energy and conservation; Botswana, animal diseases and crop research in semi-arid areas; Lesotho, soil conservation and land use; Swaziland, manpower development; Zambia, mining and the establishment of the Southern African Development Bank; Malawi, fisheries, wild life and forestry, and Tanzania would report on Industrial development.

Preparations for the next SADCC donors’ meeting in Maseru, Lesotho, later this year, would also be on the agenda, the statement said.

The Zimbabwean delegation includes the Minister of Agriculture, Senator Denis Norman, the Deputy Minister for Finance, Economic Planning and Development, Mr Ezekiel Sanyangare and senior Government officials. It returns to Harare on June 28.

LESSONS FOR TODAY

The transformation of SADCC into the Southern African Development Community (SADC) occurred on August 17, 1992, at a summit held in Windhoek, Namibia. This transition was made to give SADCC an appropriate legal status and shift its objective to include economic integration following the independence of the rest of the Southern African countries.

SADCC was formalised by means of a Memorandum of Understanding on the Institutions of the Southern African Development Coordination Conference in 1981.

In 1989, at a summit in Harare, it was decided that SADCC should be formalised further to replace the Memorandum of Understanding with an Agreement, Charter or Treaty. On August 17, 1992, at a summit held in Windhoek, Namibia, the Heads of State and Government signed the SADC Declaration and Treaty that effectively transformed SADCC into SADC.

Dr Makoni was elected as the first Executive Secretary of SADC in 1983, serving in that post for 10 years.

Zimbabwe once again assumes the rotating chairmanship of the regional body in August, under the leadership of President Mnangagwa.