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GOVERNMENT is walking the talk on implementation of development projects across all sectors of the economy.

The Second Republic continues to register many positives that have transformed people’s lives throughout the country.

Projects to enhance food security, improve health services, reduce distance travelled to schools, improve access to water and upgrade the country’s road network among others, continue to be implemented as Government works towards the attainment of an upper middle income economy by 2030.

Just last Friday the Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development Dr Anxious Masuka launched a programme to drill 400 boreholes in Matabeleland North Province.

The boreholes which will all be solar powered, will not only guarantee villagers access to drinking water but will also provide water for irrigation and watering livestock.

Dr Masuka said the target was to drill 400 boreholes by December this year.

Under the programme which is being implemented across the country, Government wants to drill at least one borehole for each of the 35 000 villages.

Dr Masuka handed over one rig to Nkayi District during the launch and said four more rigs will be delivered to the province to ensure the target to drill 400 boreholes before end of December is met.

Government is also working on a programme to establish new irrigation schemes and rehabilitating old ones in order to enhance food security.

The climate change has rendered rain-fed crop production unreliable hence the decision by Government to expand land under irrigation across the country.

The target is to put at least 350 000 hectares of land under irrigation by 2025.

Among the big irrigation schemes that have benefitted from this programme is the Mtshabezi Irrigation Scheme in Gwanda, Matabeleland South Province and Bubi-Lupane Irrigation Scheme in Matabeleland North Province.

Last year Government allocated $177 million towards the establishment of the Mtshabezi Irrigation Scheme which was first mooted in 1935 and has been a project on paper since then.

A total of 157 farmers are beneficiaries of the new scheme and are already preparing to plant their first crop which is the winter wheat.

The scheme whose beneficiaries are drawn from six villages, is set to change the livelihoods of the 157 families and their neighbours.

Government apart from providing funding for infrastructural development, has also seconded a manager from the Agricultural and Rural Development Authority (Arda) to assist the farmers. On the same day Dr Masuka was in Nkayi, his counterpart, Transport and Infrastructural Development Minister Felix Mhona and Zinara officials took journalists from different media houses on a tour of the Harare-Beitbridge Highway where about 300 kilometres that have been reconstructed, have since been opened to traffic.

Five local companies have been engaged to undertake the reconstruction of the 585km highway and Government says the companies have demonstrated that they have the capacity to undertake such big projects.

This is another major infrastructural development project being implemented by the Second Republic which has said it will not allow the imposition of sanctions by Western countries to derail its development agenda.

We want at this juncture to commend the Second Republic for its commitment to improve the citizens’ livelihoods and urge citizens to complement such efforts by working hard to build their country.

Ilizwe lakhiwa ngabaninilo. (Nyika inovakwa nevene vayo).