The Sunday Mail
Rangu Nyamurundira
Our Government’s own statistics show that young people constitute 77 percent of the national population, within which population 56 percent of Zimbabwe’s economically-active population (15–34-years-old) is found. Economic common sense would have it that Government should invest in and create space for more than half of our country’s economic potential to apply itself.
The rest of the world, even Western forces working against our economic revolution, has long acknowledged and given awards to Zimbabwe’s innovative and enterprising youth dividend.
But not yet in Zimbabwe; her Government is still to realise the economic revolutionaries she has birthed, thanks to Zanu-PF’s well-structured education policies.
It is only President Mugabe, an educationist and architect of such demographic dividend, who is alive to its potential.
At the 24th Session of the Junior Parliament in Harare on June 18, 2016, President Mugabe said, “When I look behind me, I turn my head and look back, I want to see bold, courageous young (people), disciplined.”
Child President Tinaye Mbavari took heed and said: “In April, His Excellency, the President, met with our fathers and mothers, the liberation war veterans who committed to fighting for the liberation of this country, when they were as young as we are.
“We will be Zimbabwe’s champions and heroes of the economic empowerment revolution.”
That session deliberated on the Zimbabwe Youth Empowerment Strategy for Investment (ZimYes), which is a collation of ideas and recommendations from young people on how Government can best invest in their demographic dividend to achieve Zim-Asset’s vision of “An Empowered Society and A Growing Economy”.
Youth, Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Minister Patrick Zhuwao said the strategy involves youth livelihood pathways, youth social engagement and youth decision options that enable young people to become economic empowerment heroes.
Minister Zhuwao highlighted immediate interventions towards ZimYes implementation: establishing youth commercial entities “to drive Youth Feed Zimbabwe, Youth Build Zimbabwe, Youth Industrialise Zimbabwe and Youth Employ Zimbabwe”.
He said youth must be given platforms to fight for Zimbabwe’s economic independence and prosperity, adding that young people wanted Government to invest in their innovativeness, entrepreneurship and resilience “to achieve An Empowered Society and A Growing Economy”.
Indeed, youth are the engine Government must invest in and lubricate to make indigenisation and economic empowerment succeed.
At the burial of Brigadier-General (Retired) Dr Felix Muchemwa at the National Heroes’ Acre on June 19, President Mugabe reaffirmed indigenisation.
He reminded us that Zimbabwe is endowed with value worth much more than foreign capital that will invest here to expatriate our greater value.
Our priceless self-worth includes Zimbabwe’s youth demographic dividend which must be Government’s primary investment opportunity to grow our new indigenous economy.
President Mugabe has already called for judicious exploitation of not only our natural resources, but also of our human resource whose cream is an innovative, enterprising and resilient youth dividend.
I remain perplexed by an article by Dr Tapiwa Gomo on June 20, 2016 titled “When a colonialist is vindicated”.
Gomo, who calls himself a development specialist, wants our youths to believe that there was “prophetic wisdom” in Ian Smith’s rantings.
It explains then why gullible people are made to eat rats and snakes in the name of today’s so-called prophets.
Gomo embraces Ian Smith’s statement that colonialism spread civilisation across Africa and that “before it, they had no written language, no wheel as we know it, no schools”.
Gomo, Gomo, Mountain; did you research, for starters, the University of Timbuktu, built upon a thriving economy in 12th century Mali, where “a strong concentration of both wealth and intellectuals flourished” and as the wealth of the city grew, so did the number of books, reaching 20 000?
A simple Wikipedia search would have enlightened one.
Educated Gomo will also not be enlightened that when Ian Smith uttered those stupid racist words, which he says are prophetic to Zimbabwe, Smith’s UDI regime had deprived investment in the full socio-economic capacity of our black majority, investing only enough to keep us as labourers for white Rhodesian economic interests.
Gomo acts oblivious of the fact that it was President Mugabe’s Government that burst Ian Smith’s bottle-neck education system which had disempowered the black majority.
Gomo goes on to ludicrously conclude that Zanu-PF has built nothing and overran everything Ian Smith built. Sekuru wangu Nyanguru!
We are lost if such prophesies guide our PhD holders.
True to Mbuya Nehanda’s vision that her bones would rise, Zanu-PF has built an innovative, enterprising and resilient indigenous youth demographic dividend.
Let’s not, though, have our thoughts and energies spent on chasing fools who bank on deluded prophesies to steal our nation’s attire as we wash off the bloody stain of Ian Smith’s racist economic legacy.
Instead, Government must guide and enable our innovative, enterprising and resilient youth to ensure Zimbabwe finds her path to “An Empowered Society and a Growing Economy”.
That is what President Mugabe would have us do as Zimbabwe’s bold, courageous and disciplined youth.
Rangu Nyamurundira is a lawyer and an advocate of Zimbabwe’s indigenisation and economic empowerment revolution
