The Sunday Mail
Ambassador Chris Mutsvangwa
In a VERY short three years, His Excellency President Emmerson D. Mnangagwa is dramatically transforming the economic landscape of Zimbabwe on a scale never seen by the African continent.
At the Mvuma-Chivhu-Manhize 250-hectare site, a world class steel plant is springing up like a sphinx on the African savannah.
Over US$1 billion worth of steel will be churned out by mid next year.
Around $600 million will be shaved off our steel import bill.
A similar amount will be earned from exports.
This underscores the adage that steel is the backbone to genuine national progress
This time there is a serious undertone going well beyond the usual hot air on much-touted but unrealised mega projects.
For starters, a physical visit is an imperative.
Secondly, there is the sure footprint of the investor.
Tsingshan Holdings Group, a number 279 ranked Fortune 500 company and the world’s largest stainless steel manufacturer has finished digging 10-metre-deep reinforced foundations.
They will be pedestals for huge blast furnaces churning out up to one million tonnes of carbon steel.
Chairman Xiang Guangda of Tsingshan, the ambitious global steel and nickel mogul, is gunning for 10 — 20 million tonnes of production well ahead of 2030.
He has the necessary pedigree and requisite credentials.
Since 2013, he has vaulted Indonesia to second rank behind global leader China.
Accordingly, Djakarta has overtaken Tokyo and New Delhi in global stainless production.
The construction tumult in Mvuma-Chivhu-Manhize has generated a virtuous vogue in the upper echelons of national big business.
There is a steady stream of chairmen of corporate boards and other captains of industry trooping to Mvuma-Chivhu-Manhize.
The major attraction being the slew of enabling infrastructure projects associated with the emerging giant steel mill.
These include a brand new “smart city” centred on steel fabrication and export logistics.
There is the new dam by the nearby gorge on the Munyati River.
A new railway line to connect to Mvuma and beyond so it brings metallurgical coke, limestone and ferrochrome while ferrying away steel exports to South Africa, the sub-region gorge and beyond the seas.
As we speak, more than 1 500 workers are busy at work at Mvuma-Chivhu-Manhize.
They are erecting offices and workshops.
Another 3 000 jobs are under recruitment.
As I write, a beeline has been extended to South Africa.
Dinson Steel Company, the subsidiary of Tsingshan Zimbabwe is on the hunt for diaspora Zimbabweans.
It is desperate for experienced artisans, boilermakers, welders, electricians etc. needed to install the new blast furnaces as well as the running of the new plant.
Clearly, the frenetic activity going on in Mvuma-Chivhu-Manhize is a symptom of the new-found confidence and a can do spirit.
Both of these virtues have been rekindled by President Emmerson D. Mnangagwa.
All over the land, yellow metal heavy duty vehicles are busy building highways, dams like Mtshabezi and Kunzvi, waterways channels and piping to link to Harare and Bulawayo.
There are the giant thermal power generation plants of Hwange in the national energy base of Matabeleland North.
There is the new international airport and the massive new parliament building.
Amidst all this, we hear the dissonant discord of a few detractors centred around a “dira jecharist” CCC and a cohort of inveterate malcontents such as Hopewell Chin’ono.
Rumour has it that they front for a comprador telecommunications business mogul who never steps his foot in Zimbabwe, his purported motherland.
Save for his African skin and local family name, he is as expatriate as Cecil John Rhodes.
His local business interests have preyed upon the “feja feja” casino that is the predatory Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE).
Yes, the ZSE that performs in a seesaw relationship with the national economy it is intended as a barometer.
A ZSE that flaunts parasitical foreign exchange earnings.
All stolen from the national exports of gold, tobacco, platinum group metals, tourism etc.
A ZSE that punts an industrial index that has no single brand name of global note as is the case with Shenzhen, Seoul, Tokyo, Singapore, Taipei.
A ZSE that hatches out stock derivatives like Old Mutual Asset Management -OMAM, Brightsphere Investment Group Inc – BSIG and now Old Mutual Exchange Traded Fund-OM-ETF.
These stock exchange derivatives trade as blue-chip investment counters on the fancied New York Stock Exchange.
This is even as they shamelessly belie that they originate from the stock exchange of an emergent market that is “basket case” and perennially broke Zimbabwe.
The fraudulent charade that has been the ZSE was bound to run aground sometime soon.
President Emmerson D. Mnangagwa did finally pierce through the veil of ZSE chicanery.
In June 2020, he moved.
The Statutory Instruments that closed the malign agent that was the ZSE saw prices stabilise for more than six months.
The particular target was the stock derivative called Old Mutual Implied Exchange Rate OMIR.
Under a virtually fraudulent hard currency fungibility attribute, it had for years served to haemorrhage the national stock of foreign exchange earnings.
Along the way it decimated the local unit of the Zimbabwe dollar.
Wholesale impoverishment became the lot of the be-knighted Zimbabwe citizenry.
Fast forward to the current scenario.
The post-imperialists and their cohort of local detractors have resorted to the time abuse of the ZSE.
Once again they are trying to ravage the Zimbabwe economy and spawn socio-political mayhem.
The ultimate goal being regime change through unbridled inflation emanating from an artificially depreciated national currency.
There is an ongoing run against the local money unit.
It bears no relation whatsoever from the solid fundamentals of our growing economy.
In stark terms, there is malevolence begot from evil foreign influence stalking Zimbabwe.
To relief and comfort, President Emmerson D. Mnangagwa has his eyes sharply open, his ears to the ground and his mind on full alert.
Even more reassuring, he has marshalled the requisite tools to address the stalking threat.
His riposte is poised to be decisive and game-changing once and for all.
A Zimbabwe with bountiful mineral endowments, well-watered and fertile soils being worked upon by a hardworking, organised population with high-level human skills has finally hit a jackpot of political leadership.
Those who are calling for an ill-advised stay away this week should take due heed.
Zimbabweans are way upfront in risk and reward analysis.
Recall that they fought and won a modern People’s War to realise their freedom and independence.
They are simply NEVER prone to be easy fools. Palpable prosperity beckons before them from hard working and vigilant President Emmerson D. Mnangagwa.
The evil day dreamers will fail.
Their call for a stay away shall come to nought.
On a wide national scale, manufacturers are bullish, food security is improved, gold deliveries are notching up and the high quality golden leaf is pleasing the global tobacco merchants.
All these positives are offsetting the dark economic clouds from the Ukraine war spillover.
All this is marked by the highest demand of cement ever in the history of Zimbabwe, implying a strong construction boom.
Zimbabwe is surely on the roll as it rides the cusp of a historic economic revival of ages.
