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Patrick Chitumba, Midlands Bureau Chief
THE country is a maturing democracy as evidenced by the devolution drive but will remain a unitary State despite power being devolved to provinces.
In an interview on the sidelines of the Sweden and International Centre for Local Democracy (ICLD) 2019 Capacitating Local Leaders workshop in Gweru on Thursday, the Deputy Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing, Jennifer , said devolution should be used to unite and develop the country.
“So local authorities are now taking a centre stage in terms of stimulating economic activities whereby we have even tweaked the Provincial Administrator to now become the Provincial Coordinating Director with a thrust of really having an economic impetus.
“We are saying we are maturing as a democracy, we are maturing in terms of our politics.
“We also want to get into the sphere, we also want to take a leaf from the Swedish Government and other best practice countries, and move away from just being politically emancipated but move on to be economically emancipated,” she said.
Deputy Minister Mhlanga said local authorities are going to be engines of economic growth and are expected to rejuvenate the economy.
“Ultimately they should be contributing to socio-economic development of the country. Provinces should contribute to the provincial Gross Domestic Product and ultimately into the national GDP,” she said.
Deputy Minister Mhlanga said with the coming in of the National Government, the Provincial Government and the Local Governments, the country remains a unitary State which is going to achieve a higher status of social economic emancipation.
“When we begin to do that we will achieve a higher status of socio economic emancipation and have a strengthened democracy. We will remove the poverty kind of status that most of our people are living in. We want our people to understand that as we devolve power to provinces, we remain a unitary state.
“We now have a set up where we have a National Government, the Provincial Government and the Local Government but we remain one State.
“We don’t want this devolution to come and disintegrate the nation. Rather we want it to come and strengthen us and strengthen our processes for democracy and strengthen our institutions so that we become a better country,” said Deputy Minister Mhlanga.
She commended the Swedish Government, ICLD and Genderlinks for advocating for the inclusion of women in all facets of the economy to stimulate economic growth.
“As Africa we need to include the women folk in the mainstream socio-economic activities. We want to thank Genderlinks and the Government of Sweden because Sweden has been an important partner.
“Our Government is aware of the importance of including women in all facets of the economy.
“We want to continue working with Sweden in all realms such as investment as you know that Zimbabwe is open for business,” said Deputy Minister Mhlanga.
Online Reporter