We will finish what HE started

29 May, 2016 - 00:05 0 Views
We will finish  what HE started

The Sunday Mail

Rangu Nyamurundira

It is only the beginning of our march, a leap by Zimbabwe’s youth for empowerment and a growing economy.
We came with all our energised aspirations because we have heeded President Mugabe’s consistent call that young people are the next generation that must inherit and defend Zimbabwe and all that is within her.

President Mugabe so aptly called the Million Man March by Zanu-PF’s Youth League a “great revolutionary act”, one reminiscent of the welcome he and his liberation comrades received at the dawn of political Independence in 1980.
Now is the dawn of our economic independence.
On May 25, 2016 — Africa Day — Zimbabwe’s youth made a declaration of intent that embraces President Mugabe’s leadership and vision, and that we shall follow our path-finder conscious of his leadership towards a new economy in which our majority indigenous youth will thrive.
Youth will drive his vision for “An Empowered Society and a Growing Economy”, alive to the reality of clandestine efforts by internal and external saboteurs against establishing such an indigenous economy.
And so our new generation declares, “We will finish what HE started.”
That Million Man March was not an event: It is the beginning of our economic march and a bold step to President Mugabe’s envisioned prosperous indigenous economy.
Zanu-PF’s Youth League has stirred our economic aspirations, and must take us through.
Our aspirations are not declared to strangers, but amongst comrades and as economic conversations between the old and the new that President Mugabe’s vision shall be realised.
The Zanu-PF Youth League must provide the internal checks critical to ensuring that those appointed to office by President Mugabe are accountable to his and the party’s vision and policies that must be implemented in Government, and which speak clearly to a new indigenous economy.
It is, after all, the law set by the Sixth Zanu-PF National People’s Congress that cements the fact that the ruling party is supreme over Government and that its Cabinet ministers should report to the party to account for its policies in Government.
In his speech, President Mugabe thanked the Youth League for an expression that leveraged Zanu-PF policies and ideology, while declaring Zimbabwe a rock that will not be pushed over.
He went further to state that this “revolutionary act” strengthens Zanu-PF leaders to follow the ideological path of the party. Most importantly, President Mugabe underscored that the aspirations of Zimbabwe’s youth must be realised within Government and that Government must fulfil the policies of Zanu-PF, which policies represent the aspirations and will of the people.
Zimbabwe’s youth are a neglected economic force, left dormant in a nation whose new indigenous economy cries for the energy, innovation and resilience of its young people.
It is thanks to President Mugabe, himself an educationist at heart, that Government embraced a far-reaching education policy in 1980.
Today we are Africa’s most literate youth, acknowledged by the world at various fora for our innovation, resilience and diligence.
Recently, former South African President Thabo Mbeki spoke glowingly of a “good story to tell about Africans” — Zimbabweans who won a South African farmer-of-the-year award.
President Mbeki said this innovation and resilience could only be credited to Zimbabweans who “have got a very different attitude to land”.
Such an attitude is courtesy of the leadership and vision of President Mugabe, which now even benefits other countries.
And yet here at home, does our responsible line ministry consciously invest in youthful innovation, enterprise and resilience on the land to harvest a dividend? Have young people not proved themselves in the tobacco sector?
Where then is a clear and effective “Youth Feed Zimbabwe” initiative?
Could the youth not have been mobilised for productivity, irrespective of our drought, thanks to President Mugabe’s vision to transform land-locked Zimbabwe into a water body with all her dams?
What about youth in manufacturing and value addition?
One innovative 30-year-old female chemist is doing it alone in Harare’s Budiriro 2 suburb, producing three tonnes of liquid soap weekly without any Government support.
Yet a Government holding its capable youth at arm’s length cries over a trade deficit, contributed to by imported soap.
Then they have our Head of State and Government blamed for failing the terms of reference of their appointment and employment.
That is why on May 25, 2016 we declared that “we will finish what he started”.
On April 11, 2016, President Mugabe issued a statement clarifying Government’s position on the National Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Policy.
It stresses the intent of the policy: To deliberately empower the historically disadvantaged indigenous Zimbabweans and to enable them to be significant players in Zimbabwe’s mainstream economy.
Further, the statement outlines various empowerment initiatives, including retaining or localising 75 percent of the gross value of exploited natural resources, procurement and market linkages.
These are critical to youth empowerment and our effective participation in the national economy.
The economic statistics speak loudly; that 36 percent of Zimbabwe’s population is between 15 and 34-years-old, while another 41 percent falls below 15. Most importantly, youth between 15 and 34 constitute 56 percent of the economically-active population.
Is Government listening to its own human resources and economic facts? How shall Government invest in this demographic economic dividend?
The participation of an innovative and resilient youth in economic activities will realise President Mugabe’s vision for “an empowered society and a growing economy”.

Rangu Nyamurundira is a lawyer and indigenisation and economic empowerment consultant. His views do not necessarily reflect those of any institution with which he is associated

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