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Pardon Muzavazi
Correspondent
As the country approaches election season, rogue Civic Society Organisations (CSOs) and puppet opposition parties go into overdrive to discredit efforts by the New Dispensation that are meant to ensure the country attains the upper middle income economy status projected for 2030.
They do that by sowing seeds of discontent.
One such CSO is the Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development (ZIMCODD), that is setting up a campaign themed “#HowFar”.
ZIMCODD is either not widely read, locally travelled or up-to-date with Government efforts of ensuring the well-being of its citizens, attracting foreign direct investment, enforcing a zero tolerance to corruption, among others.
The evidence is everywhere for all to see and acknowledge.
Hauling Zimbabwe out of the economic abyss that it found itself in for the last 20 something years is definitely not an event, but a process, which the New Dispensation must be commended for having done an excellent job #ThusFar.
The Government has put the country back on the calendar as it is the one leading in Covid-19 administration, procurement and vaccination of its citizens in the SADC region.
The Government has so far spent US$102 million on vaccines and associated costs like syringes, transport and other Protective Personal Equipment (PPEs).
To date, over 2,5 million have been vaccinated against Covid-19 out of a targeted 10 million people that will ensure the country attains its herd immunity.
Recently, Zimbabwe was able to donate 20 000 doses of Covid-19 vaccines to the Namibian government.
This alone is a show of Zimbabwe’s confidence in its ability to maintain optimum health for its citizens against Covid-19 through availability of enough vaccines.
People deserve to know what their Government is doing on the promises made.
Government is on record being transparent about all the mega deals that have materialised due to the implementation of the ease of doing business, the engagement and re-engagement policy, the Zimbabwe is open for business call and the conducive business environment.
Economic analyst Prosper Chitambara recently commented saying, “attracting foreign direct investment is a process not an event.
“President Emmerson Mnangagwa has signed mega deals that include the US$3 billion Platinum mining project in Darwendale with the Great Dyke Consortium and exploration is underway as we speak.
“We also have an Australian company Invictus Energy Limited in Muzarabani that has invested up to US$60 million towards the exploration of both oil and gas.
“This will make significant contributions towards the country being energy self-sufficient, it will create employment, grow the economy and bring huge downstream benefits.”
Another deal was reached by Prospect Resources Zimbabwe to mine for lithium, it has currently done 92 percent of the work on engineering, procurement and construction scope for the high purity petalite pilot plant.
This is expected to add toward the attainment of the US$12 billion mining industry by 2023.
In other areas of development, Government has managed to construct the New Parliament Building in Mt Hampden, upgrade the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport, rehabilitate all the major roads in the country, among other action.
Economic commentators have also rubbished the assertions by ZIMCODD that nothing is being done by Government in the fight against smuggling of mineral resources from the country.
“The country’s detractors have started to falsely insinuate that billions of United States dollars from the mining industry is being siphoned outside the country by some individuals,” said economic analyst Cleopas Nyamande.
“The truth is that no system is water tight and cases of leakages are not peculiar to Zimbabwe.
“What the country’s detractors are not saying is that the New Dispensation has upped efforts to stop smuggling and illicit deals within the mining sector as the country pushes towards a US$12 billion industry by 2023.”
Thus far, Government is working to stop smuggling in the mining sector and other sectors of the economy.
The Government is working hard to capacitate the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) with technologically aided crime prevention, investigation and detection equipment in order to keep abreast of criminal sophistry.
The Government is introducing smart policing systems that will thwart any attempts by unscrupulous people to smuggle or siphon money outside the country.
Last year, the Minister of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage, Kazembe Kazembe, said smuggling in the mining sector was going to be a thing of the past as the Government was installing a sophisticated system at the country’s borders and airports that will be able to automatically identify culprits without them even knowing.
The country’s detractors should know that the recent case of Zimbabwe Miners Federation president Henrietta Rushwaya demonstrates the Government’s and the security sector’s seriousness in stopping illicit financial flows and smuggling of gold outside the country.
Rushwaya was apprehended at the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport, while trying to smuggle about six kilogrammes of gold.
Moreover, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor Dr John Mangudya this year announced that Government was drafting legislation which will compel small scale gold miners to register their operations as another way of curbing gold smuggling.
The country is expecting to produce 30 tonnes of gold this year after extracting 19,1 tonnes last year.
Year after year, Ms Mildred Chiri, the Auditor General (AG), has been releasing reports on the state of affairs in Government finances.
But this year, it’s all a different case as fiscal authorities have ruthlessly rung changes to effectively monitor and control finance affairs in Government ministries and State Owned Enterprises (SOEs).
In 2017, Ms Chiri made 435 recommendations to the Government to plug misuse of funds as well as to tidy up the financial mess in line ministries and SOE’s.
Out of the recommendations made by Ms Chiri, the Government had fully implemented 108 and 85 partly executed.
Apart from that, the Government also actively sought to implement and exhaust the AG’s office recommendations of 2018 to restore sanity in public finances.
The 2019 audited report earlier this year, Ms Chiri revealed that out of the 342 recommendations outstanding, about 94 were fully implemented whilst 88 more were partly implemented and only 174 remain outstanding.
She highlighted Government efforts to reign in the shambolic state of finances in the form of statutory/structural reforms, for example, Government enacted the Public Entities Corporate Governance Act (Chapter 10:31), establishment of the Corporate Governance Unit (CGU) in the Office of the President and Cabinet, Central Internal Audit Unit in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, among other things.
This year, Finance and Economic Development Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube spelt out Government’s plans to promote transparency and accountability culture and practices within the public sector.
Apart from enacting the Public Entities Corporate Governance (PECG) Act in surlier in 2018, Prof Ncube said Government would press ahead with the objective entrenching corporate governance tenets to ensure that all actors within the public sector who contribute or influence corporate governance of each and every SOE are fully cognisant of the transparency and accountability obligation reposed on them.
Though a few misguided intellectual midgets may find little joy in fiscal authorities’ progress so far, it is imperative to note that it takes a few light years to build a culture of transparency and accountability.
The progress made by fiscal authorities underline the Second Republic’s political will to nip fiscal indiscipline in the bud and free more resources for effective service delivery for the general citizenry.
Online Reporter