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Fungi Kwaramba Political Editor
FROM eroding jobs even among the most educated persons such as engineers and doctors, to preventing the Government from using abundant natural resources to develop and maintain essential infrastructure, the effects of sanctions on Zimbabwe have been wide and far-reaching.
Turning the hands of time to 2021 when Professor Alena Douhan, the UN Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights in Zimbabwe, visited the country she did not hold back on the catastrophic effects of the economic sanctions.
She said contrary to assertions that only a few individuals are targeted sanctions have had a devastating effect on the whole population of Zimbabwe, especially those in extreme poverty, women, young people, children, medical workers, and people with disabilities or life-threatening or chronic diseases, particularly in rural areas.
She noted that low salaries, unemployment, and growing involvement in the informal economy result in migration to neighbouring countries and an increase in poverty, criminal activities, corruption, prostitution, trafficking in persons, sexual exploitation, and drug abuse, especially among the most vulnerable, including women, young people, and children.
Apart from the primary sanctions that were imposed by the Western world as punishment for the land reform programme, there are also secondary sanctions that have seen financial institutions being fined to the tune of US$3,8 billion by the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control. So debilitating has been the sanctions packaged misleadingly as the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act, that multilateral financing from institutions such as the World Bank and the Africa Development Bank has ceased with dire ripple effects on the lives and livelihoods of Zimbabwe.
“The inability of the Government to secure credits to rehabilitate, maintain and modernise infrastructure, and buy equipment and spare parts, along with supply-chain disruptions and transaction costs, have resulted in a sharp decline in the quality and accessibility of health care in the public sector, which accounts for more than 65 percent of health-care services provided,” reads the report.
Critical infrastructure was not spared by the sanctions which facilitated the collapse of roads, railway lines and airports.
“In Bulawayo, prior to sanctions, the National Railways of Zimbabwe mainly relied on General Motors as its main supplier.
“Although the National Railways of Zimbabwe was not specifically listed in sanctions regimes, its suppliers suspended business shortly after sanctions were imposed. The National Railways was reportedly determined to be ‘owned or controlled’ by the members of Government responsible for transportation, who were listed by the United States and the European Union.
“The National Railways experienced a sharp decline in serviceable rolling stock from 12 million metric tons in the late 1990s to below the current 2,5 million metric tonnes, and it retrenched 5 200 workers as a result.
“Since sanctions were imposed, the National Railways has been reportedly unable to access any meaningful lines of credit in either the United States or the European Union,” reads the report.
Turning adversity into opportunity
But despite all that Zimbabwe under the leadership of President Mnangagwa has adopted policies to turn adversity into opportunity by looking inwardly for its development, and the benefits have astounded even the country’s staunchest critics.
In his first term of office, the President presided over many projects that were wholly-funded by the Government, with little external support, demonstrating to the world that “with or without sanctions” Zimbabwe will chart its path in the spirit of “Nyika Inovakwa Nevene Vayo”.
Even though Zimbabwe still groans under baneful economic sanctions, unflinching, the President has refused to let that be a setback, saying they have “taught us to think outside the box” and that they will never be.
“Our decision to reorganise ourselves internally in order to more effectively withstand those heinous sanctions has restored agency and given us initiative, thus helping us throw off the debilitating badge of victimhood and helplessness.
“A nation such as ours – with vast natural resources, and with an educated and hardworking, enterprising populace – can never be at the mercy of coercive measures meant to collapse our economy, and to force us to capitulate.
“Simply, acquiescing to external pressure is against our DNA, and goes against our heroic experience as a people who survived and successfully resisted colonialism for over a century,” President Mnangagwa wrote in his weekly column in The Sunday Mail.
And, he has been walking the talk, from ensuring food security during his first term to charging investors to value and add and beneficiate minerals from Zimbabwe, the President has been able to create jobs and restore dignity to a country, that before the advent of the Second Republic used to import even if its staple cereal maize.
After more than 20 years of importing maize, now the country is ready to assume grain exports after a long sanctions-induced hiatus, with initial exports of 40 000 tonnes of grain to East Africa from the substantial surpluses grown, wheat exports are also being considered after Zimbabwe attained self-sufficiency for the first time last year and should be reaping a significant surplus over the next few months.
In 2021, the agriculture sector grew by 36,2 percent and became a US$8,2 billion economy way ahead of the 2025 target, and this was all attributable to President Mnangagwa who has invested millions of dollars towards farm modernisation and mechanisation to achieve food security and sovereignty.
Another sector that has grown exponentially since President Mnangagwa assumed office is the mining sector which was
In the National Development Strategy 1, the mining sector has an ambitious US$12 billion target, cynics were doubtful that Government would transform that sector which was US$2,8 billion when President Mnangagwa came to power in 2018, but that target has already been met because apart from just exploiting minerals for raw exports, there is now beneficiation and value addition.
The mining sector is now heading towards a US$20 billion sector with other signature projects on cards such as the Mapinga Industrial Energy Hub investment worth over US$13 billion.
Zimbabwe is set to manufacture lithium batteries and solar panels, resultantly more than 25 000 jobs directly and indirectly will be created in the Great Dyke area.
In yet another masterstroke, President Mnangagwa set up measures that compelled gems and precious metals miners to pay half of their mining royalties to the Government through minerals as the country builds its mineral reserves.
Previously, they were paying a portion in forex, but mineral reserves serve as a source of trust in a country given that they carry no credit or counterparty risks.
“Our economy must realise maximum benefits from increased beneficiation and value addition. As such, my new Administration, through the Responsible Mining Initiative, will ensure greater stewardship over our finite natural resources. These must benefit both present and future generations. Riding on our abundant resources, as well as skilled and hard-working people, Zimbabwe is poised to take its place as a competitive manufacturing jurisdiction,” the President said.
In the past five years, President Mnangagwa has built massive infrastructure, which includes dams and roads with the Harare-Beitbridge Road, long considered a death trap, now up to international standards in a demonstration of Zimbabwe’s resilience against adversity.
Among other projects, the President has tackled power cuts head-on through the expansion of the Hwange Power Station Units 7 and 8 which are already on stream and contribute 600MW to the national grid.
The once despised Robert Mugabe International Airport, which was once deserted by airliners, is now teeming with traffic and has gone a make-over that matches any in the world, all this against baneful economic sanctions that the imposers thought would cripple Zimbabwe and isolate her.
In the health sector, the President is putting in place responsive measures towards ensuring efficient and quality service delivery, and these include, building and upgrading health facilities across the country to ensure equitable access and reduction of walking distance by our communities.
Through devolution and decentralisation billions of dollars have been poured towards the country’s health sector with that apparent in almost every district where clinics have been built or refurbished.
As part of modernisation of the sector solar systems for power back-up have been installed in over 1 000 health facilities throughout the country.
The same approach has been adopted in other key sectors such as education as the Second Republic shows its fortitude and determination to uplift the lives and livelihoods of its people, regardless of the universally condemned economic sanctions.
With interventions such as the Education 5.0 Model and bias towards practical education that comes with innovative hubs and industrial parks, President Mnangagwa is easing the pain of sanctions with his yes we can mentality and pragmatic approach to issues.
With or without sanctions, that were imposed by Western countries to make the people viciously turn against the Zanu PF Government, President Mnangagwa has gone into greater detail to explain the depth of the philosophy Nyika Inovakwa Nevene vayo; Ilizwe lakhiwa ngabaninilo, which when loosely translated, means the responsibility, mission, duty, and burden of developing Zimbabwe rests with Zimbabweans and belong to it.
“We cannot subcontract that responsibility to any other race, nation or people from another continent or planet. It is none but ourselves, falling back on our God-given resources and our ever-growing ingenuity. Our painful history shows the world has not always been kind to us,” he said.
This does not mean that philosophy is exclusionary as the country continues to engage and re-engage with the rest of the world, but with the onus on Zimbabweans to work harder for their progress.
Online Reporter