The Sunday Mail
Veronica Gwaze
Zimbabwe’s Diaspora community has pledged to help President Emmerson Mnangagwa turn his vision of creating an Upper Middle-Income economy by 2030 into reality.
In an interview, new Zanu-PF United Kingdom and Europe chair Mr Marshall Gore said the group is spreading its tentacles to various parts of the globe to help smoothen the country’s re-engagement drive.
Mr Gore recently replaced Mr Nick Mangwana, who took up the post of Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services.
“The membership in our district continues to grow both organically and by mobilisation since the coming in of the New Dispensation.
“We have set up two additional sub-branches in Leeds and Scotland, and we are setting up three more branches next year in Southampton, Kent and Oxford,” said Mr Gore.
“We will continue supporting our President to deliver total transformation of our economy as prescribed in our 2018 manifesto and Vision 2030, which seeks to transform Zimbabwe into an Upper Middle-Income economy.
“As you are aware, growth in our membership means increase in revenue from membership subscriptions.
“Currently, we remit all our revenue from subscriptions to party headquarters in Harare,” he said.
The Second Republic has opted for a conciliatory foreign policy approach in order to unlock value from mutually beneficial bilateral and multilateral international relations.
Government’s thrust to deepen political and economic reforms has is alluring proved attractive to members of the Diaspora.
The Diaspora’s new mobilisation drive, Mr Gore said, is being spurred by the use of social media platforms.
“We need to unite the party, create vibrant and viable party programmes in the Diaspora that will support success for business development, investment promotion and community development back home.
“There is need to promote youth empowerment, membership growth because whether we like it or not, we are living in an era where the youths have become very instrumental.
“Our mobilisation strategy is to be vibrant and create more cell groups, taking advantage of social media to amplify our party,” said Mr Gore.
He said there is also a deliberate push to lure investment into the country.
“We are geared to support our Government in all programmes by leveraging on our skills, expertise and contacts from the Diaspora, using our opportunities to support the Government by unlocking foreign direct investment (FDI) and Diaspora investment funds (DIF).
“The President is a listening President . . . There is no longer bureaucracy unlike with the previous President.
‘‘He has an open-door policy, promptly deals with issues at hand. He is hands-on and aware of things that are taking place,” he said.
Mr Gore said one of the major pursuits for the Diaspora community will be to ratchet up pressure on Washington to remove sanctions on Zimbabwe.
It is envisaged that their voice will complement a recent joint petition by Faith for the Nation Campaign and the Zimbabwe National Elders Forum calling for the removal of the embargo.
“We have started lobbying for Zimbabwe to be invited at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) Conference taking place in April next year.
“Most importantly, we will continue to spread our party ideology and principles, making sure that the values and ethos of the revolutionary party are preserved forever, the party of hope for the future,” said Mr Gore.
