People’s economy coming of age

03 May, 2015 - 00:05 0 Views

The Sunday Mail

Rangu Nyamurundira
Zimbabwe is 35 years into its political independence. We have come of age in the exercise of the people’s political authority, which people have affirmed it as at July 31, 2013 to drive us toward the fullness of life – our economic sovereignty.

We celebrate our independence thankful that it is President Mugabe who inspires the ruling Zanu-PF to stay the course despite the malicious regime change forces whose economic embargo seeks to depose of the People’s total independence policies.

Our Zanu-PF Government has from 1980 persevered and remained resolute in steering Zimbabwe along policies for broad-based economic emancipation and empowerment through the “equitable distribution of the wealth of the nation”, to the empowerment of the indigenous majority.

Let us not be so naïve as to believe otherwise than that we have been subjected to economic warfare by Western interests bent on retaining their monopoly over our economy. Their affront has been most pronounced over the past 15 years, undermining our progress towards a prospering indigenous economy.

These forces have waged their affront against our common identity and pursuit, having enlisted opposing political forces from our midst to divide and weaken our political State’s economic agenda.

It is a divide that has made an attempt for the very heart of our ruling Zanu-PF, by fracturing the party’s ideology, which drives our pursuit for economic emancipation and empowerment.

Those set against the indigenisation of our economy will want to tell us there is nothing but misery to celebrate at our 35th independence anniversary.

The people are right to boldly declare “so far so good”. It is not so because we have attained the full extent of our economic aspirations.

Rather, we celebrate the defined path we walk toward an “empowered society” to achieve “a growing economy”.

It was never promised to be easy, was it?

Moreso given the anticipated aggression against our agenda within and beyond our borders.

As President Mugabe acknowledged in his 35th independence statement, “The war of liberation has taught us that nothing valuable and precious comes on a silver platter”.

Thus despite the challenges and malicious aggression “we continue to forge ahead”.

It is “so far so good” because from the onset of political independence, Zanu-PF had the vision of an education policy to create an educated and skilled indigenous human resource, today the envy of Africa and the world. They knew and had calculated its critical role in the years ahead.

For the past 15 years, Zanu-PF’s ideological objective has sought to direct such a human resource force toward controlling and mastering our economy, but only to be frustrated by what is ironically an unenlightened yet fully degreed people without sense of self-worth.

Is it not “so far so good” when our Government’s land reform programme has begun to draw out enterprising indigenous farmers only frustrated by sanctioned capital? What of indigenisation establishing “empowered communities” guaranteed millions in seed capital? Can they not achieve food security and nutrition for our rural communities and the nation in line with Zim Asset?

Our own recent statistics are that as much as US$3 billion is floating within the small and medium enterprises sector. Can such capital, if only effectively capacitated and directed, not stimulate the industries critical to the growth of our new indigenous economy?

Allow President Mugabe his justified bragging rights, humble as he may be, that “we rightly deserve to celebrate our 35 years of independence, the past three-and-half decades which have seen us resolute in consolidating and safeguarding our independence, even in the face of seemingly insurmountable trials and tribulations”.

It is most befitting that this 35th year of independence – coming after the people cast their vote resoundingly in favour of indigenisation and an empowered society – is themed, “Zimbabwe @ 35: Consolidating Unity, Peace and Economic Sovereignty”.

Indeed, at 35, the people are looking to a bolder and more consistent Zanu-PF Government, moreso now that the party’s 6th National People’s Congress has cleansed itself of divisive and ideologically compromising elements.

It would be foolhardy for those who fell by the wayside during the structural realignment to claim to be the party and to represent the people. After all, they stand accused of gross corruption and expropriating, for their selfish personal gain, the very 10 percent shareholding set aside for the people in their indigenising economy.

That they should now claim to represent and put “the people first” is a comedy of the tragedies that have haunted Zanu-PF’s ideological objectives. They now remember the people on their way down and off the ladder, yet having undermined those same people’s economic aspirations during their political heights.

The disgruntled cabal now claiming a legitimising status of the “real zanu-pf” while creating a façade of “people first” suffers the tragedy of egotistic personalities that believed themselves as towering above the party’s identity and objectives for narrow personal interests. They now only lay claim to the people to remedy self-inflicted political injury. They had underestimated the Zanu-PF they once served as a living institution, moreso a revolutionary one, very much alert to its identity and objectives and easily aroused by the people to jealously guard its ideals for perpetuity.

It should be understood that personalities have value only as far as they strive to preserve and remain resolute in advancing such objectives of the institution of the people.

We certainly cannot have leaders that WaDydimus Mutasa would want to describe to the Daily News as the “fine compromising figure(s)” to take Zimbabwe forward.

Does that then explain the toxicating compromises that have been eating away at the heart of the people’s indigenous economy?

The people must celebrate our 35th year of independence reassured by the progress so far made against internal sabotage of the people’s economy. We have persevered because President Mugabe has always called upon the people’s will, as he did on the Eve of Independence, in 1978, that there must be an organisation of “the Party in the name of the People and the People in the name of the Party”.

Now that the party is ridding itself of debilitating forces, Zanu-PF must look to the institutions and agencies of the State and Government to ensure people-endorsed economic policies are being implemented.

Government’s institutions and agencies must embrace the pursuit and establishment of an empowered indigenous society that is central to the revival and growth of our indigenising economy.

We have persevered under Western economic sanctions and have remained resolute. Surely, our Government’s prioritisation must not be reduced to groveling before foreign investors and international financial institutions.

They are welcome and must be engaged, but not to define or dictate to our emerging economy, moreso after their Western governments have sought to destroy the institutions of such an indigenous economy.

They must engage and complement our society such as the emerging indigenous farmers, stimulating growth of our critical agricultural sector, the billion-dollar SME sector offering a new foundation for a locally-grown and capital retaining industry, or the community trusts with potential to drive rural development and spur economic growth from the grassroots.

Do we dare return to the dependency that was the old economy, from which we have endeavoured to free ourselves and from which the resolve towards an emancipated and sovereign economy has been hardened.

They cannot be allowed to dictate to or condition such an empowered society. Let us engage, always conscious of the capacity within us which Government must nurture.

Our Government shall not realise Zim Asset’s vision for “an empowered society and growing economy” without embracing the ideas for total independence emanating from its Zanu-PF principals. The people shall drive this economy, now that they are beginning to master it.

President Mugabe remains with the people and leads their party because he serves loyally and has not compromised Zanu-PF’s ideals. The same cannot be said of those expelled from the party.

At 35, we declare confidently: “So far so good.”

  • Rangu Nyamurundira is a lawyer and member of the Zimbabwe Youth Council Board. His views are his own and do not reflect or represent the views of institutions he is associated with.

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