Online Reporter
Debra Matabvu Harare Bureau
PRESIDENT Mnangagwa has made Zimbabweans believe in their ability to build their country using local resources and capabilities, while drawing inspiration from the country’s rich and inspirational heritage, Deputy Chief Secretary in the Office of the President and Cabinet (Presidential Communications) Mr George Charamba has said.
In an interview on the eve of President Mnangagwa’s 84th birthday last week, Mr Charamba reflected on the President’s leadership since 2017, describing him as a leader who has helped rebuild national confidence after years of economic challenges and political upheaval.
Zimbabwe’s weakened sense of confidence, he said, should be understood against the backdrop of the country’s difficult post-independence history, including hardships occasioned by the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (Esap) and sanctions imposed following the Land Reform Programme, among other challenges.
These successive challenges, Mr Charamba said, placed significant strain on the country and its people, making the restoration of national confidence and pride an important part of the country’s development journey.
“In comes ED (President Mnangagwa) in 2017, he is presiding over a nation whose spirit is battered, really battered,” said Mr Charamba.
“A sense of diminished self-worth and he has to rehabilitate<bha>;</bha> he has to reconstruct that spirit, nurture it in such a way that he ends up presiding over the people who are aware of self-belief. I think, for me, that did it. He restored our mojo, if you want. Wherever you see us, you see the people who walk with that strength of self-belief in us.”
‘A country is built by its own people’
Mr Charamba said President Mnangagwa’s call to action, which is delivered through his mantra “Nyika inovakwa nevene vayo/Ilizwe lakhiwa ngabanikazi balo” (A country is built by its people), has its origins in the liberation struggle.
He said the philosophy had been supported by deliberate interventions aimed at building domestic productive capacity, restoring self-belief and reducing reliance on external solutions.
Education 5.0, he added, was one such intervention that transformed the emphasis of local education beyond knowledge consumption towards problem-solving, innovation and production.
“I think there is a way of looking at Education 5.0 as part of the President’s belief in the people he guides,” he said.
“So, when you are creating those incubators at a tertiary level, what you are saying is you are summoning the national intellect, canalising it towards nation-building, which means it is actually building on this self-belief that I was talking about.”
A inspirational legacy
Mr Charamba said the concept of Education 5.0 had also seen the country moving towards increased production of locally made goods.
“If you take us from 1982 to 2016, all that period we were overly political as a State. What the President brought in post-2017 was a State which was literate in terms of the marketplace.
“Now when you link it with Education 5.0, you realise there is a sense of seamless continuity. You prime the intellect, you translate that intellect into production, you grow the economy to a point where just now, we average something like 5,3 percent per annum growth, completely unheard of in this country.”
The construction of major infrastructure such as roads and dams, Mr Charamba said, was not only about facilitating economic activity.
He said the projects also demonstrated Zimbabweans’ capacity to take charge of their own development, thereby strengthening the sense of self-belief he identified as a key feature of the President’s leadership.
This approach, he said, was consistent with the broader emphasis on using local capabilities to drive national development.
Mr Charamba also linked the restoration of national confidence to the introduction of Munhumutapa Day, saying the commemoration was intended to draw inspiration from the country’s history rather than establish any form of monarchy.
He said Great Zimbabwe, which is associated with the Munhumutapa civilisation, represented resilience, creativity and the ability of Zimbabwe’s ancestors to build structures that have endured for centuries.
“There are lots of empty debates around his declaring Munhumutapa Day and people symbolically saying he (the President) is trying to<bha> create </bha>a kingdom out of a constitutional democracy,” he said.
“Great nations are built on a great past. You envision, you imagine your futures<bha>;</bha> your national strength on the basis of the history that has been bequeathed to you by your own people.
“You notice at some point the kingdom of Munhumutapa actually shared borders with Abyssinia, present-day Ethiopia,
“That’s how expansive Zimbabwe was in history. That’s how expansive Zimbabwe is in present times.
“So, really what the President is doing is to give back our sense of self-belief, our sense of strength which history gave us.”
Mr Charamba said the historical legacy represented by Munhumutapa and Great Zimbabwe could provide the people with a stronger sense of identity and confidence as the country pursued development.
He also described President Mnangagwa as a family man who is down to earth and strongly abhors corruption.
President Mnangagwa celebrated his 84th birthday on September 15, which coincided with Munhumutapa Day.
