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Blessings Chidakwa, Zimpapers Elections Desk

ZIMBABWE will continue its development trajectory of looking inwards in line with the “Nyika inovakwa nevene vayo” mantra which espouses doing away with the first world mentality that nations can only develop through Foreign Direct Investment, President Mnangagwa has said.

The President said a nation can only develop by looking inwards and his Government has successfully busted economic sanctions through import substitution with the country now manufacturing its fertilisers locally, cutting down on imports from Russia and Ukraine.

The Second Republic, after looking inwards, is now saving huge amounts of forex through import substitution as 81 percent of goods on the country’s supermarket shelves are now being made locally, up from 37 to 39 percent less than three years ago.

In an interview with ZTN Prime and ZBC in Harare on Monday, President Mnangagwa said when his Government introduced the philosophy, “Nyika inovakwa nevene vayo”, it was keen to see it catching on even at family level.

He said the reliance on Foreign Direct Investment “must get out of my people, especially my Cabinet.”
“That is the theory the First World wants the Third World to believe in, to say for us to develop we must look for investment from their countries, no.

“We must develop our country with domestic resources that are available in our country.
“If you wanted to build a house in the past, you looked at a catalogue and said very good, door frames from Turkey, glasses from Japan, all those things we must now have; our universities have innovation hubs to produce those goods locally,” President Mnangagwa said.

He said there was a need to continue capacitating locals.
“If you look at where those goods are being produced, the materials are in here. We have them, we must produce those things. We used to get all our fertiliser either from Ukraine or Russia.

“Then when this thing happened between Russia and Ukraine, we could not access that fertiliser and I said to our people, what ingredients make our fertiliser?

“We then discovered we have all those things here. By this year we are almost there, we are about to have enough fertiliser for ourselves, producing it here,” the President said.

“Now we can make our own fertiliser and this applies to many other products in the country. We must produce these things. What we eat we must produce; what we wear, we must produce”.

President Mnangagwa said with the advent of the Second Republic, locally made products increased.
“Go into our supermarkets today. As a result of nyika inovakwa nevene vayo and self-belief, we are now at 81 percent domestic products on shelves in our supermarkets which means import substitution has worked.

“We will continue doing that, yes there may be areas where we are behind, but we are moving on. With that philosophy we are building our economy,” he said.

The President said for the last three consecutive years, despite being under sanctions, the country’s economy was the fastest growing in the region because Zimbabwe believes in itself.

President Mnangagwa said the economy was also on a major recovery path despite suffering attacks from countries that imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe.

“The issue here is that we were mistaken to believe that an economy under sanctions can operate like any other economy without sanctions”.
President Mnangagwa said in 2008, the local currency collapsed totally and a committee, in which he sat, proposed the introduction of multiple currencies at that time.

“So, this is the same attack that has come back to us, to attack our currencies, attack our economy to collapse. Countries that imposed sanctions had expected a particular achievement, a result which did not come.

“So as a result of that they decided to continue with their attack on the economy and on our currency. We sat down with my team and introduced measures that have reversed that attack and now there is stability in the economy, stability in the currency and it has been stabilised,” he said.

President Mnangagwa said some of the country’s businesses in the financial services sector and the manufacturing sector were used as tools to undermine their own economy.

“We caught many companies, but before we could expose them they had to choose either to be exposed or pay a steep fine. All of them chose not to be exposed, especially banks. They felt that if we expose them there would be a run on the banks and they will collapse.

“So they chose to pay millions to make us keep quiet and we have kept quiet but the results have come and have stabilised our economy,” he said.
President Mnangagwa also reiterated that the Zimbabwe dollar is here to stay.

“There is no other option, but to have a future. It is there to stay. Those who have doubts should quickly go to the laundry and have their minds cleansed because every country must have its own currency to develop.

“It may be fought, because of sanctions, by those who want regime change, but I can assure you we shall continue to put measures to protect it,” he said.