We have the interest of people at heart

Below are excerpts of President Mnangagwa’s speech at a star rally held in Mutawatawa, Mashonaland East province, yesterday.

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Salutations.

President E.D. Mnangagwa

TODAY, I have seen that Mashonaland East is the leading province.

Those from Masvingo, who were leading, have now lost their place to Mashonaland East. I have never seen such a huge number of people gathered in one place.

This has never happened in the history of our country.

You, our forebears, who have gone to yonder world, are the ones who have gathered your people here with us today.

I thank you, Mashonaland East.

As the President of ZANU PF, I am very happy. For a period of 40 years, Maramba-Pfungwe has always delivered for the party.

Now, I have seen it for myself.

From today going forward, all party leaders must know that Mashonaland is our leading province.

When our Secretary-General (Dr Obert) Mpofu, stood up to address you, he nearly fell to the ground after he was shocked by the size of today’s crowd. He had never seen such a huge crowd.

You are the cream of our party. You give us a lot of joy, people of Mashonaland East.

Even the election observers among us are shocked because they have never seen such a huge crowd gather in one place in their countries.

This will show them that once you sanction a nation, the people will come together in unity and work together.

This shows them that we are united, during the day and at night.

Even in days of hunger and those of bountiful harvests, we remain united.

Even if those from the West continue loathing us, we remain united in loving our motherland.

Our revolutionary mass party, ZANU PF, is the most popular party in Zimbabwe.

It is the only party that has a history of the liberation of this country.

It is the only party that has brought democracy, independence and respect to the people of our motherland, Zimbabwe.

This is a testimony before anybody who has eyes to see: we are democratic and we are united.

We will continue moving forward — and backwards never — as a united people of the Republic of Zimbabwe.

Under ZANU PF, we shall continue to rule in perpetuity.

Your coming here is testimony that Mbuya Nehanda died for a worthy cause.

Let us continue to build our country together.

Nyika inovakwa nevene vayo, igotongwa nevene vayo, ichinamatirwa nevene vayo.

Let us pray for our country.

Before I go any further, I want to remember our fallen heroes who hailed from this province.

Under the Second Republic, we recognise our colleagues who contributed to the independence of this country; those who suffered so that we could have independence and freedom.

We want them to know that we will never forget their sacrifices.

You have heard (Political Commissar) Cde (Mike) Bimha saying we are going to have a gala in the evening.

We will be remembering a national hero who died in 1962 — Dr Samuel Parirenyatwa.

He was killed because he was working to free this country.

We also have many other national heroes . . .

I want to assure them that wherever they are, we have not forgotten them.

We are remembering the works of Cde Solomon Rex Nhongo, Ernest Kadungure, George Nyandoro, Abraham Kabasa, Chenjerai Hunzvi, Charles Utete, Ambassador Tichaona Jokonya, Cde Paradzai Zimondi, who left us in the last few years, Cde Joe Biggie Matiza, and many more . . .

I say to them, Mashonaland East and Zimbabwe as a whole remember you because you worked for this country.

We remember all members of ZANU PF who have gone, who sacrificed and are now departed comrades.

We remain and will continue to carry forward the revolutionary party’s mandate and the revolutionary party’s philosophy.

We are a people’s party. We represent the needs of the party. We have a history of bringing about independence, freedom and democracy for our people.

No one else and no other political party in this country can claim this position.

Only ZANU PF is qualified to speak about bringing freedom.

Yes, we have wayward children, but we don’t condemn them because they are part of our country.

In Zimbabwe, we have some small wayward parties, but they remain our people.

ZANU PF’s trademark is winning.

In the liberation struggle, we won.

They imposed sanctions on us and we are still winning.

On elections, we have been winning them since 1980. We will continue to win.

Looking at the number of people who are here, I can tell you that those who dream unseating us have been condemned by their ancestors.

We are heading to the elections and you have been told by Cde Bimha that we are going in as Team ZANU PF.

So, on August 23, that is when all of us, from Mutare to Plumtree and from Beitbridge to Chirundu, are going to vote. However, the number of people at this rally gives me so much confidence.

Whichever way the opposition votes, we are going to whitewash them; they will never win.

This is a sacred country, which belongs to Munhumutapa, who ruled this country from the north to the south but his residence was at Great Zimbabwe.

So, I am saying this afternoon to King Munhumutapa, your children are here.

We are protecting and preserving the heritage that you left us.

Please, continue leading and guiding us so that we have peace and unity.

Let me also take this opportunity to pay tribute to Chief Svosve, who was among the pioneers of land reform from Mashonaland East; we want to thank him.

When we attained independence in 1980, we were told at Lancaster House that for 10 years, we would not take back our land, except on the principle of willing-buyer, willing-seller.

We observed that constitutional provision.

When that time lapsed, the former President, the late Cde Mugabe, said you are now the Minister of Justice, make a law that will enable us to take back our land.

However, the Svosve clan did not wait for the law to be enacted; they took the land before the law was passed.

When the law was later passed in Parliament, the people from Svosve had already taken their land back.

We should not forget that you are a revolutionary people.

People of Mashonaland East lead and others follow. You have taken over the leadership from the people of Masvingo.

Nyika intongwa, igovakwa, igonamatirwa nevene vayo.

We are building our country using the same philosophy that other countries used to build theirs.

There is no country that has ever been built by foreigners.

We, the people of Zimbabwe, are mandated to build our own country, and no one will do it for us. Brick upon brick, stone upon stone. Step by step.

We were placed under sanctions when we took our land back. That programme is now behind us because we have now been united with our land.

It is not an issue anymore.

The land reform is irreversible.

We are now going for elections, you should go and vote in your numbers.

Be wary of those who come here with the intention of causing violence.

They will come with the gospel of violence and not the gospel of Christ.

Do not engage in violence with them.

Give them water instead and let them continue on their way.

Do not give them somewhere to sleep; let them continue with their journey.

The Second Republic, first and foremost, requires peace in the country.

Zimbabwe is one of the most peaceful countries in our region and also on the continent of Africa.

There are many countries that do not want us to be peaceful. They want us to be violent and divided. I say shame on them.

We are united as a people and as a united nation.

As the Second Republic, we have said that our number one priority is food security.

Zimbabwe used to have food insecurity, but the Second Republic has built dams in provinces across the country, even in this province.

We have introduced a model of agriculture that addresses food security at the household level. We made sure each and every household is food-secure through Pfumvudza/Intwasa.

We are now in the third year as a food-secure nation.

All irrigation schemes introduced by the Second Republic are meant to ensure we have enough food, whether there is drought or there is no drought.

We have harnessed water bodies throughout the country through dams and we use that water for irrigation.

We now know how much food we want per year.

Through all these interventions, we are determined to increase our food output.

So, for the past three years, we have been planting and harvesting and having surplus food in our country.

We have enough food for each and every one.

Each chief has their own headmen, and headmen have their village heads, so there is no way one would die of hunger without the village head knowing about it.

At Government level, we have ward councillors; they should make sure people have enough supply of food and are not lacking.

If there is hunger, they should communicate so that the Department of Social Welfare can supply food.

We are doing this not to promote laziness. The Bible says people will eat off their sweat and if you don’t want, you will die.

People should always engage in production. All of us must work.

This country is and should be built by its own people.

Each province has its own endowments.

Here in Mashonaland East, there are a lot of minerals.

l am also happy that when in Cabinet, we ask which province produces better in terms of agriculture.

We realised that Mashonaland East, Central and West are our biggest competitors.

We have said, under the Second Republic, Zimbabwe is a peaceful country.

Zimbabwe is open for business.

Yes, we have sanctions imposed on our country by some Western countries, but we are saying to those who want to come in and work with us, they are welcome.

We have so much investment coming into Zimbabwe in spite of sanctions.

In fact, for the last three years, Zimbabwe has been growing economically ahead of every SADC country.

So, congratulations to our people.

In that respect, Mashonaland East is doing very well.

Last year, you delivered 415 000 tonnes of surplus maize.

In terms of tobacco, you are very good farmers, but not as good as Mashonaland West. Tobacco has given us over US$900 million and we thank you for that.

They imposed sanctions on us but they want to smoke our tobacco.

We have 35 000 villages in this country.

Today, close to where we are right now, we have established a village garden.

We are making 35 000 village gardens similar to the one right here, the one we have handed over to Chief Katsande.

We then establish horticulture gardens there and a solar borehole.

Ahead of this rally, I had sent my officers to drill boreholes here.

So far, they have drilled 56 boreholes but only 34 have water.

This shows you that the Second Republic has the interest of the people at heart.

Just our coming here has brought those many boreholes.

Infrastructure development

Turning to infrastructure development, my (Mashonaland East) Minister (of State for Provincial Affairs and Devolution) Amai Munzverengwi said the Second Republic has done so many infrastructure projects in this province.

It is the Second Republic that is modernising the roads that we are using today.

The highway from Beitbridge to Masvingo, which passes through this province; the Harare-Mutare Road and several other roads, including the Marondera-Macheke stretch; Murewa-Macheke; Beatrice-Mubaira; Hwedza-Sadza, are being attended to.

Talk of bridges, there was Rwenya Bridge that had not been attended to for many years, but the Second Republic has worked on it.

Here in Mashonaland East, we have built three dams — Muchekeranwa, Chivhu and Kunzvi.

This shows you the development that is being brought by the Second Republic in this province.

In the past, we used to have challenges with fuel shortages.

The Second Republic has dealt with that problem decisively; you will never again come across people queuing for fuel.

A few days ago, we were in Hwange where we have completed a massive power generation project that is giving us an additional 600 megawatts of power.

We now have enough electricity.

So, we have plenty of things we are doing.

In the past, people from here were forced to travel to Harare to apply for passports. Now, you can easily get your biometric passports here in your home province.

We started that project in Murewa.

So far, all the provinces now have e-passport centres.

You no longer need to go to Harare.

In education, we have reimagined our education system by introducing innovation and technology.

In order to build a nation, it requires people with expertise in science and technology so that we produce what we eat and what we wear.

When the Second Republic came in, only 35 percent to 37 percent of the goods on the shelves were manufactured in Zimbabwe. Today, over 80 percent of the products in our supermarkets are produced in Zimbabwe.

This is because we are focused on production, production and production.

We must produce those things we need.

When I was in Bulawayo, we opened a world-class clinic in Cowdray Park.

On August 9, I will be commissioning a massive fleet of ambulances and an assortment of hospital equipment.

Maramba-Pfungwe, you have done well.

Continue on that path.

I have never seen such a massive number of people.

I also commend our Mashonaland chiefs, led by Chief Nechombo.

The Second Republic Government will continue to support you to develop the countryside through building schools and clinics, bringing clean water throughout.

Now, I want to end my address.

We are proud, as ZANU PF. We want to remain united and be respectful to our chief, parents and teachers.

To our children, please ensure that we have peace and tranquillity in our country.

We cannot have peace when half the time our youths are on drugs.

When you are high on drugs, you will lose your heritage.

We say no to drug abuse.

We must teach children to shun corruption and drugs.

Drunk people cannot build a nation.