The Sunday Mail
Finance and Economic Minister Patrick Chinamasa does not talk often.
He appears to be the kind of person who prefers to get on with what is admittedly a very tough job.
When he does speak, it is usually to update the nation on his unenviable job of balancing national priorities.
We carry a short but profound statement from the minister in our main story this week.
And it carries a message that many sections of our media in Zimbabwe have failed to understand.
“You need, as media, not to focus on the negative. There are companies, through fiscal processes, which we have revived here in Zimbabwe.
“You don’t report on them. Something is the matter with us Zimbabweans. We are a very unhappy people, always complaining.
“Let’s try and see whether we can try to give focus on the positive issues. There are a lot of steps that we have taken to move the economy forward and quite clearly now, we are on the right course. The results will show; in fact they are beginning to show.”
It is a good news message that merchants of doom and anarchy are not interested in.
The strange thing is that the same people who hope for gloom live in Zimbabwe and will suffer the consequences of a failed economy.
The matter is quite simple.
The more we belittle our country and the efforts at economic recovery that are being made, the more we scare away capital.
It is a self-reinforcing decline mentality that does not find room for expression in progressive countries.
Instead of encouraging growth, we would rather discourage people from investing in Zimbabwe.
There are several positives that we should be focusing our energies on, even as we find ways of dealing with the negatives.
For instance, Government recently reached an agreement worth US$2 billion for the Beitbridge-Chirundu Highway.
Instead, some people want to harp on about an illusory US$2 billion “Marshal Plan for Zimbabwe” that the United States will only make available when President Mugabe is pushed out of office and Morgan Tsvangirai is installed in his place.
It is an old story that has no grounding in reality.
The real story, the story that has a grounding in reality is that US$2 billion is going towards a single road.
In any country in the world, a US$2 billion investment in a single project is a huge matter.
We are talking of US$2 billion in a country whose National Budget is less than US$5 billion.
And this is US$2 billion that is coming with President Mugabe as President and not as an inducement from the United States to compromise our national interests.
It is not just this US$2 billion project that is taking off in Zimbabwe.
As we also report in The Sunday Mail this week, Industry Minister Mike Bimha is saying industrial capacity utilisation is rising.
Companies are turning around on the back of both their own innovations as well as Government interventions and support.
And even as some sections of the media cry on behalf of foreign companies that indigenisation and empowerment regulations will see firms shutting down, those very same corporate bodies are complying with the law of the land.
What sense is there in saying the law will kill the economy when the companies primarily concerned with compliance and Government are finding each other?
It can only mean that those sections of the media are hoping that the economy will collapse.
To what end? Only they know.
We are not saying Zimbabwe’s economy is perfect. Far from it.
There is much that needs to be done, much that needs correction.
But all that will not be achieved by anti-Zimbabwe reporting that does nothing to advance the national interest of socio-economic transformation.
Comment: The good news we don’t want to tell
The Sunday Mail
Finance and Economic Minister Patrick Chinamasa does not talk often.
He appears to be the kind of person who prefers to get on with what is admittedly a very tough job.
When he does speak, it is usually to update the nation on his unenviable job of balancing national priorities.
We carry a short but profound statement from the minister in our main story this week.
And it carries a message that many sections of our media in Zimbabwe have failed to understand.
“You need, as media, not to focus on the negative. There are companies, through fiscal processes, which we have revived here in Zimbabwe.
“You don’t report on them. Something is the matter with us Zimbabweans. We are a very unhappy people, always complaining.
“Let’s try and see whether we can try to give focus on the positive issues. There are a lot of steps that we have taken to move the economy forward and quite clearly now, we are on the right course. The results will show; in fact they are beginning to show.”
It is a good news message that merchants of doom and anarchy are not interested in.
The strange thing is that the same people who hope for gloom live in Zimbabwe and will suffer the consequences of a failed economy.
The matter is quite simple.
The more we belittle our country and the efforts at economic recovery that are being made, the more we scare away capital.
It is a self-reinforcing decline mentality that does not find room for expression in progressive countries.
Instead of encouraging growth, we would rather discourage people from investing in Zimbabwe.
There are several positives that we should be focusing our energies on, even as we find ways of dealing with the negatives.
For instance, Government recently reached an agreement worth US$2 billion for the Beitbridge-Chirundu Highway.
Instead, some people want to harp on about an illusory US$2 billion “Marshal Plan for Zimbabwe” that the United States will only make available when President Mugabe is pushed out of office and Morgan Tsvangirai is installed in his place.
It is an old story that has no grounding in reality.
The real story, the story that has a grounding in reality is that US$2 billion is going towards a single road.
In any country in the world, a US$2 billion investment in a single project is a huge matter.
We are talking of US$2 billion in a country whose National Budget is less than US$5 billion.
And this is US$2 billion that is coming with President Mugabe as President and not as an inducement from the United States to compromise our national interests.
It is not just this US$2 billion project that is taking off in Zimbabwe.
As we also report in The Sunday Mail this week, Industry Minister Mike Bimha is saying industrial capacity utilisation is rising.
Companies are turning around on the back of both their own innovations as well as Government interventions and support.
And even as some sections of the media cry on behalf of foreign companies that indigenisation and empowerment regulations will see firms shutting down, those very same corporate bodies are complying with the law of the land.
What sense is there in saying the law will kill the economy when the companies primarily concerned with compliance and Government are finding each other?
It can only mean that those sections of the media are hoping that the economy will collapse.
To what end? Only they know.
We are not saying Zimbabwe’s economy is perfect. Far from it.
There is much that needs to be done, much that needs correction.
But all that will not be achieved by anti-Zimbabwe reporting that does nothing to advance the national interest of socio-economic transformation.
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