mbulelo smpofu
Stephen Mpofu
Today the curtain comes down on the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair, leaving behind our illegal western economic-bruised motherland on track to feasible economic boom on the back of much-needed financial infusions through trade from this country’s former coloniser, Britain as well as from the European Union.
As this year’s joint ZITF and our 45th independence celebrations coincided, the European Union said it would pump out 60 million Euros or approximately US$64 million trade with our country mostly with diamond mining taking centre stage.
Not to be left out, the British Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Mr Pete Vowles, said at the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair 2025 Welcome Cocktail co-hosted by the ZITF company and the British Embassy that: “the ZITF is the highlight of the calendar year for us as the British Embassy and it’s a chance for all of us to showcase our partnerships and our trade and investment co-operation.”
Those words of promise from a representative of a country that those in power today engaged in a bush war — with some of them losing their precious lives — to liberate our motherland from foreign rule, amount to a holy promise of close economic co-operation that must never be reversed and Zimbabweans obviously look forward to the fulfilment of the promised co-operation between our two countries.
Now, with our Government’s programme for the industrialisation of rural Zimbabwe, it behooves jobless youths roaming the streets in urban areas to make beelines to the countryside, a place our foreign colonisers described and neglected as “the sticks” to work in mines that produce diamonds and other products much sought after overseas as well as on agro-products that catch the fancy of foreign countries.
Which means that a skills-based educational curriculum becomes a must under all circumstances in order for Zimbabweans to drive the Government’s mantra which says: “nyika inovakwa nevene vayo/ilizwe lakhiwa ngabanikazi balo/a country is built by its owners”.
Stated otherwise, the sticks must be turned into vibrant economic landscapes for jobs, food and economic boom.
All said, the engine for the successful achievement of the things said above in this discourse is patriotism to harness Zimbabweans to pull together the plough on the furrow of national development and prosperity for our nation.
Which also means that Zimbabwe’s friendly states should not allow disgraced politicians to use their self-exiled freedom to destabilise their native homelands by calling for work-stoppages, among other ill-gotten destabilisation agendas in the hope of punishing governments in their homelands, as was the case in our SADC community a few weeks ago.
Such renegades, this communicologist strongly believes, should be expelled for abusing their freedom in exile and in the process soiling relations between otherwise two friendly states under a mistaken belief that the country hosting the disgraced politician agrees with his/her attacks on their native country.
As a community, SADC resembles a village where good neighbourly relations-spoilers should not be entertained in any and all corners of the village.
Online Reporter