Full bellies in the offing

Stephen Mpofu, Perspective

The lackadaisical pace of growth of this country’s economy, notwithstanding the illegal, Western sanctions, cannot fail to persuade uninverted Zimbabweans to rally their unqualified support for a transcendental transformation of our higher education now in the offing for the proud, existing body of knowledge and the body of skills being created by the Government for the two bodies to run neck-and-neck with the agenda for creating an upper middle income economy by the year 2030 and obviously to also benefit future generations in the motherland.

The existing body of knowledge has at 90 percent literacy rating catapulted our nation to the top of the African continent among nations boasting the highest literacy ratings.

But to strut about in public all the while boasting about an education that is not utilitarian to fill empty bellies is not anything to write home about.

On the contrary, a body of skills that fills emaciated bodies and creates peace and stability in a nation is something that every human being, our own people included, must strive to achieve so as to damn the devil and his foreign disciples who wish our nation ill.

Highly educated Zimbabweans who are articulate in a language and accent of our former colonisers know about the presents and compositions of minerals, including strategic uranium, that pulsate deep underground day and night, while countless numbers of people in this country go hungry for lack of money to buy food or to source other essential needs in life.

The tragic irony here is that, as our people suffer want, foreigners with their bodies of skills extract the minerals and take some of them away for processing into finished products in their native countries.

With no Zimbabweans there watching over the processing of the raw riches into refined goods for sale, who knows for sure if the proceeds from the sales of the minerals will find their way back home to Zimbabwe to benefit the sons and daughters of this country as God obviously intended for that to happen with the endowment of the natural resources in question?

With a body of skilled people around, our country will be in a position to extract, process and sell the finished products with every cent accounted for reinvestment to grow the economy further.

The new body of skills feeding on research, scientific or otherwise from the body of knowledge, is also wont to boost manufacturing and agricultural industries and in the process serve as a Philip for the growth of these sectors.

The problem with foreigners wholly owning mines or other strategic resources is that some of them tend to behave like former colonisers who behaved as if they also owned the people of this country.

This writer strongly believes that partnerships between foreigners and Zimbabweans is the way to go in owning and running strategic natural resources in our nation.

Sadly, however, some degreed Zimbabweans whose education falls far short of creating skills to move Zimbabwe forward into a new economic future were heard on local radio recently opposing the higher educational reform to include the envisaged body of skills.

But, as everyone should know, a building that is not renovated is bound to collapse or be abandoned, however beautiful it might look to those who behold it.

Similarly, those Zimbabweans reluctant to upgrade their theoretical degrees with skills to move the nation forward economically should be made to realise that they risk becoming irrelevant in the final analysis as this country cannot hope to advance in post-modernity with fence-sitters with their hands folded. 

Add to the above  dilemma, Zimbabwe now faces the possibility of being banned by the Federation of African football from hosting pre-Olympic soccer qualifiers because of stadia which Caf regards as being dilapidated.

So far Barbourfields Stadium in Bulawayo is regarded by Caf as being the only one suitable to host international soccer games sanctioned by that body, with National Sports Stadium in this country’s capital, Harare, far from being considered to host international matches.

But, surely, why has the minister responsible for local authorities which administers sports stadia in question, and the minister responsible for sports not moved in swiftly to ensure that the big stadia are in good condition for the international soccer matches and other, international sports activities?

Is it a lack of a body of skills to upgrade the ground in question here?

Soccer happens to be a popular sport in Zimbabwe as in other countries drawing huge crowds that pay handsomely for the entertainment the sport provides.

Will it not really be a shame should Zimbabwe sanction itself against hosting soccer games by not putting money aside to provide facilities required for improving the grounds in question?

And what is a possible ban by Caf, which is expected to inspect the soccer grounds in the near future likely to do to Zimbabwe’s image internationally?

Those with ears to hear even in their anonymity have heard.

You Might Also Like

Comments