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Minister Moyo

Prosper Ndlovu Business Editor
ECONOMIC Planning Minister Simon Khaya Moyo yesterday unveiled his programme of action – clearing the air over his new portfolio’s role after President Robert Mugabe reshuffled Cabinet last December.The President appointed Khaya Moyo, a former Senior Minister of State, to a new post to head the new ministry, which is expected to add impetus to the efforts to revive the economy.

Outlining his programme of action during a Mandel/Gibs 2015 economic symposium in Harare, the minister affirmed the Zanu-PF government’s commitment to turning the economy around and creating jobs for thousands of Zimbabweans as espoused its five-year blueprint, Zim-Asset.

“The President directed the formation of the Ministry of Economic Planning . . . to provide technical input for the development of a national vision for the country anchored on the Zim-Asset blueprint,” said  Khaya Moyo.

He said his new portfolio would focus on production of long term and medium term national economic development  plans, production of prioritised annual national economic plans that should form the basis of the annual national budgets and production of provincial economic development plans on the basis of district development plans.

The minister also said he has been given the mandate to manage the Public Sector Investment Programme (PSIP) and co-ordinate the formulation of line ministries’ five-year strategic plans aligned to Zim-Asset and other future plans.

He said his ministry would “organise regular review meetings in economic planning to achieve the widest public ownership, co-ordinate the country’s   regional planning initiatives in Sadc,  Comesa, AU and other international initiatives”.

Also under the purview of the ministry is conducting research into integrated national development planning, advising the government on regional and international trends in development planning.

The minister said he was also tasked to superintend over the activities of the State agencies such as the Zimbabwe Statistical Agency (Zimstat), the Zimbabwe Economic Policy Analysis and Research Unit (Zeparu) and State Enterprise Restructuring Agency (Sera).

“The task of the Ministry of Economic Planning is a mammoth one as you can see, and faced with this challenge, I directed my staff to conduct a study of economic planning ministries around the world in order to give sound input into how to carry out this mandate in the Zimbabwean setting,” said the minister.

He pledged an interactive approach in sharing ideas with all the players in resuscitating the economy and called for joint ownership of the final product that will be guided by collective national desire of a positive socio-economic transformation.

“Your inputs on the work of the Ministry of Economic Planning, its agenda and priorities, its interface with you the stakeholders, the major economic conundrums to be solved and other very key and critical issues, are very welcome,” added Khaya Moyo.

He said efforts were already underway to gather input to support the ministry’s thrust and that announcement of clear intervention strategies would be made soon.

“This is in order to set the ground for developing a highly ambitious long term economic plan that is informed by quality information, foresight studies, and  empirical evidence of factors driving different scenarios that can impact our future, for example.

“It must be a planning process underpinned by unquestionable academic rigour, peer review and stakeholder engagement, leading to nationwide acceptance and implementation whilst we rally behind the call that ‘Zimbabwe shall never be a colony again,’” said Khaya Moyo.