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President ED Mnangagwa

Stephen Mpofu
Zimbabwe’s new beginning — call it new dispensation after the fall of former President Robert Mugabe’s government last November — continues to posit a brighter future so that uninterrupted peace and stability are a must for the consummation of the exciting new prospects for our motherland.

[Which suggests that anyone sabotaging national tranquillity must be visited with the wrath of the law on behalf of enraged publics (repeat publics) eager to continue to move on a new path created by the new government and into a brave new future.]

The recent re-opening of Eureka gold mine in Mvurwi, Mashonaland  Central  province, and before that the resumption of work at Masvingo’s  Cold Storage  Commission along with news that asbestos mines  at Shabanie and Mashava will soon  be reopened should make job seekers in particular execute a Sinjonjo dance as a brighter future beckons for their families.

The closure of the two mines as well  as shutdowns of factories and  companies in other towns and cities, particularly in Bulawayo, once upon a time Zimbabwe’s industrial hub,  brought about by illegal western financial and economic sanctions to protest land reform, saw thousands of jobless Zimbabweans trooping out to neighbouring countries and elsewhere farther abroad where they remain hold up — with some of them treated like slaves and unable to return home to exercise their right to vote in next month’s harmonised  elections.

President  Emmerson Mnangagwa’s campaign for Zimbabwe’s re-engagement with the rest  of the world  is yield handsome dividends with prospective investors making bee-lines to the country  to join Zimbabweans in revamping the economy with benefits accruing  to both themselves as well as to the  host country.

It is therefore incumbent upon our people, as the President has said,  to give the  foreign direct investors  such a warm reception as will make others climb down  from their fences and join us as partners in the economic and social development of our countries.

Zimbabwe is rich in different kinds of minerals with gold, diamonds and platinum   among the most popular ones with foreign investors.

Now the government has announced that it will roll out Command mining in order for our people to benefit from their natural resources instead of doing spade work for foreign companies exploiting Zimbabwe’s mineral endowments for the enrichment of their native countries.

Not only will Command mining directly benefit our people; it is also bound to bring sanity to gold panning along rivers in various parts of the country where the use of chemicals such as cyanide poses the threat of polluting water bodies while mounds of earth dug up along river beds pause the risk of silting the water bodies, not to mention violent clashes, some fatal, which have repeatedly occurred reported in various areas where the makorokoza do their thing.

Command mining will obviously ensure that no minerals are blued out of the country for sale with the money not being remitted to benefit the source, Zimbabwe, as is believed by many  to have been  the case where foreigners are in total  control of the exploitation  of  some of Zimbabwe’s precious minerals.

It would be interesting to know, for instance, what happened to emeralds which made Mberengwa district popular during the war of liberation. Were they all taken out and sold outside the country since villagers in areas where the emeralds prevalent remain wallowing in quagmires of poverty to this very day.

Or does the mineral remain buried underground to be exploited for the benefit of our national economy?

This writer knows of some politicians and teachers who acquired the emeralds from freedom fighters for a song and probably sit pretty even after retiring from politics and from government service.

Command agriculture, it has been said by those in power, has the potential even in times of drought to restore Zimbabwe’s bread basket status as enjoyed in the early years of independence, thanks to the indefatigable work of peasants.

The constructions of more dams in various parts of the country will ensure that when rain seasons are lean irrigation will guarantee uninterrupted food production for the country.

Add Command livestock to uninterrupted food production and this country’s economy will remain buoyant.

Burgeoning appetites for Zimbabwean beef have been reported in Britain and elsewhere in the European Union and so, like Command livestock if pursued with vigour especially in cattle raring in Matabeleland will help firmly anchor our economy.

Finally , because the economy and future of this country rest in our hands, Zimbabweans should regard the above discourse as a clarion call on everyone to know more (repeat know more) of corruption and nepotism and instead  fiercely love themselves and their  country and walk tall in unity as an example to others in the global village.