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From George Maponga in Masvingo
President Mnangagwa’s vigorous push for devolution of power to provinces will steer Zimbabwe to rapid socio-economic transformation in line with the President’s vision to make the country an upper middle-income economy by 2030, a Zanu-PF Politburo member has said.
Zanu-PF Secretary for Security Cde Lovemore Matuke last week said devolution had engineered China’s rapid economic growth to become the world’s second largest economy after the United States, and Zimbabwe should draw lessons on devolution from the Asian economic giant.
Cde Matuke was speaking after returning home from China on Thursday last week, where he led a 25-member delegation comprising Zanu-PF Politburo and Central Committee members on a 10-day exchange programme with the Chinese Communist Party (CPC).
The Zanu-PF Politburo member said the exchange programme with CPC was an eye-opener for his delegation saying Zimbabwe should take a leaf from China which successfully implemented devolution to engender unprecedented socio-economic development.
“Our visit to China was an eye-opener and we are happy that President Mnangagwa has been vigorously pushing the issue of devolution of power to provinces because Chinese economic growth was also anchored on the successful implementation of devolution.”
“We discovered that in China provinces actually compete to grow their Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which in turn will lead to aggregate positive national economic growth. In China each province has an economic niche, be it ICTs, agriculture or mining, which anchors the GDP growth in that particular area and that competition to expand the GDP between provinces is good for a country and we are happy that is what President Mnangagwa wants to do,” he said.
Cde Matuke said there was also need for Zimbabwe to adopt the Chinese model on the role of Government in business.
“In China, we discovered that there is a close working relationship between the government and the CPC and also that government is very much involved in business where it is one of the biggest investors in various sectors of the economy be it retail, manufacturing, banking etc.
“In China, the government is actually the biggest employer both in terms of numbers in the civil service and those employed in government-linked private enterprises.”
“Adopting a similar model here in Zimbabwe will be good because it forestalls a situation where Government will be held hostage by business through things like unjustified price hikes,” said Cde Matuke.
The Zanu-PF Politburo member said even the political environment in China was not poisoned like in Zimbabwe were some opposition parties pursued policies and activities orchestrated by foreigners.
He said in China all political players were Chinese first before anything else which he said should be a lesson for the opposition here.
“We discovered that China managed a giant economic leap because of successful execution of the policy of beneficiation which see most of the products from the Asian giant being value added to earn more hard currency for the country. The concept of producing even starts in the early stages of education where kids in primary schools are encouraged to make toys and they grow up with an enterprising spirit to do better,” he said.
Cde Matuke said Zimbabwe should also draw lessons from China and shift towards high-rise flats for urban housing saying most major towns in Zimbabwe had “eaten” a lot of peri-urban farmland for housing.
“In Zimbabwe another lesson that we learnt from China is on the need to build flats for housing because we have been wasting vast tracts of agricultural land in peri-urban areas which was going to housing yet this land could be used to produce food to feed urbanites. We need to seriously sit down as a country and look at the issue of going upwards (high-rise flats) instead of our current approach because land is not elastic; it is a finite resource,” said Cde Matuke.
Zanu-PF and the CPC have a long-standing close relationship that dates back to the pre-independence era when China supported the liberation war effort by freedom fighters culminating in the jettisoning of colonial rule in 1980.
The ruling party delegation to China led by Cde Matuke comprised four Politburo members and 21 Central Committee members.
Online Reporter