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Patrick Chitumba Senior Reporter
ZIMBABWE’S road network is not fit for purpose and is responsible for hundreds of deaths every year, President Robert Mugabe said yesterday as he demanded major works on council and national roads.
Holiday periods had become synonymous with road carnage, the President said as he officially opened the 55th edition of the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair in Bulawayo.
“The roads, our roads, oh dear me! As I looked at them from the airport, it’s as if they were made in 1924, the year I was born,” said President Mugabe.
“Let’s put a bit of cement, resurface them, and also decorate them, put shouldering to the roads like others are doing. If that road is a newer road than Robert Mugabe, who was born in 1924, it must show that it is modern, being attended to.”
The President said both the councils and the Zimbabwe National Roads Administration – in charge of the country’s major highways – should shoulder the blame for the state of the road infrastructure.
“Councillors would say they don’t have money, but where does it go? We pay rent, we pay rates, we would now want to know. So, local government has got to be jerked up so that it can jerk up our councillors so that they can look after the people better. But we in government also must look to build better roads, dualisation… and not just resurfacing of roads.
“Many of our people, you know when we have our holidays, die on the roads and it’s very sad. Do we have, should we continue to have these holidays, long holidays because they yield so many deaths on the roads for us?
“We must expect every time on Christmas, every time on Easter that many people are going to die on the roads. Is that correct?”
President Mugabe also said all the water in the country’s cities and towns had been condemned as unsafe for drinking as he revealed that an emergency Cabinet committee had been set up to find a solution to the problem.
To cheers, he told the several thousands gathered: “So, we must work on infrastructure, infrastructure utilities like Zesa and water, sewage, my my my! We’re drinking raw water, all that sewage running into water sources and the doctors have said our water is not clean, in all the cities, that’s why we’ve put an emergency committee in the Cabinet, we’ve created an emergency committee to look at water immediately, and sewage, and try to clean all the cities.
“We must have our cities all of them clean. God has given us good rain and our rivers are full of water and we don’t want that water soiled.”
He said the government was also looking at alternative sources of energy such as harnessing solar energy to boost power generation in the country.
“We continue to look at tapping more solar, more hydro and increase generators in Kariba, also Hwange – small hydro power stations. Utilities must work for us. We must enable our industries with water, with power. Those must come first,” said the President.
He said the Zimbabwe Agenda for Socio-Economic Transformation (ZimAsset), the country’s five-year economic roadmap, could transform the economy. Through value addition and the beneficiation pillar, ZimAsset is expected to drive the country through a process of economic transformation, whose centrepiece is the beneficiation of our abundant products from our natural resources,” he said.
“Investment in productive sectors at the core of the government’s comprehensive strategy is intended to fortify our country’s economic growth and development.”
President Mugabe also reiterated that the country was not going to nationalise foreign companies, saying this was a misinterpretation of his government’s indigenisation and empowerment programme.
“Allow me to seize this opportunity to demystify and correct misconceptions that might be lingering in people’s minds regarding Zimbabwe’s Economic Empowerment and Indigenisation policy,” said President Mugabe.
“We don’t understand why the United States would choose to single out our country for sanctions. I don’t understand and can only say we were singled out because of the policies we’ve pursued that benefit our people, especially the land reform programme.
“God gave us Zimbabwe and the natural resources and who are we to disobey the command of the Almighty? He placed us in control of our resources, these natural resources; the sources of our wealth shall be yours. They’re yours, yours alone. If you give them away, you will be disobeying the hand and act of the Almighty who put you in control and ownership.
“But it appears the Americans won’t understand that. We understand them as the most democratic country, and democracy is derived from certain values of understanding that the people of a country have a right in their togetherness to own their resources and not just to choose leaders, but to own the resources and ask leaders they choose to work on the resources so that they benefit. We shall continue to interact with US in the matter.”
President Mugabe said Zimbabwe will not be defeated by the economic sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union.
“We will defeat them and show them that Zimbabwe will not die under sanctions. We will show them that Zimbabwe will never ever be a colony again,” he said.
Online Reporter