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Perspective Stephen Mpofu
ONCE the elective Zanu-PF congress is immortalised in the annals of Zimbabwe’s political history, and the new executive of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association has mustered a firm hold on things, a critical new move forward should follow without much delay.

Which is that the veterans of the liberation struggle must proceed to validate the revolution that secured from a white settler regime land soaked with the precious blood of the gallant sons and daughters of the soil so that Zimbabweans might regain their freedom to self-actualise themselves through social, economic and political development unfettered by inhibitive racist, colonial laws of the past.

In his speech inaugurating the new leadership of the war veterans association in Harare earlier this week, President Mugabe, the organisation’s patron, gave gems of ideas that should serve as a fillip in promoting the land reform programme to fill village granaries and national silos with food, thereby restoring this country’s status as the bread basket of Southern Africa as well as other countries that suffer food shortages elsewhere on the continent.

The President said land was still available for allocation and that efforts should be made to ascertain the number of war veterans who live in a particular area so they can benefit from any land redistribution.

In the address, repeatedly punctuated with loud applause, President Mugabe mentioned that if war veterans became well organised, the government would create a ministry to look after their interests.

Today, many ex-combatants occupy land allocated under the agrarian revolution that has also seen thousands of peasants benefiting from the reform programme with farms repossessed from some commercial white farmers being re-allocated to them.

But ex-combatants given land under the reform programme should desist from becoming contract farmers for whites still in the country, President Mugabe suggested.

Obviously, contract farming is not much of a departure from a system in the past whereby blacks worked as farm labourers to produce food for domestic consumption or for export while white commercial farmers cracked the whip or sat back drinking tea at home with their wives, knowing that their “boys” were doing work for them, supervised by their own fellow blacks and for measly pay.

And, anyway, taking possession of vast tracts of fertile land and putting part of it to production while weeds grow on much of the land does not do any justice to the agrarian revolution.

On the contrary, intensive cultivation of, say, flowers for export to earn much–needed foreign exchange for the country, or for the intensive cultivation of varieties of food crops for domestic consumption, will go a long way in promoting the agricultural industry.

In his opening address to congress on Thursday, President Mugabe said efforts would be made to ensure that irrigation was provided to help farmers in their productive initiatives.

Today a lack of water dogs some of the people who benefited from the land reform programme and this appears a strong case for the government to carry out a hydrological survey to discover how much underground water is available across the country for irrigation purposes in addition to water available in dams.

Presss reports by experts say that underground water is 100 times more than surface water yet, ironically, millions on the continent starve for lack of water to grow food.

If, for instance, Zimbabwe possessed a hydrological map of underground water, boreholes can then be sunk, where these are needed, to draw water for irrigation to boost food production.

In his address to the war veterans, the President also mentioned that next year should see measures being taken to revive and re-invigorate the depressed manufacturing industry in the country.

What Cde Mugabe didn’t  mention  in his speech, but which must have been clearly understood by his immediate audience and by other people in the country, is that foreign investment has the potential to help in bringing the once-vibrant manufacturing industry before the illegal Western sanctions hit the country, back to even keel.

In particular, direct foreign investment through partnerships with local companies has the potential to yield handsome dividends and local companies should therefore go for it.

In these years of postmodern technological innovations, a local company stands to benefit from a vertical transfer of technology from the parent country of its partner for improved productive services and for the quality of products to consumers.

On the other hand, a foreign company in partnership with a Zimbabwean company is guaranteed security of its investment in the country.

The transfer of technology also suggests that a foreign company might bring in technical experts to work in the country.

It goes without saying that technical assistance is probably the most innocent form of external aid as no strings are normally attached as is in the cases where a foreign investor might want to hack off a pound of flesh in return for aid provided.

The only negative thing over which technical assistance might be indicted is when experts sent to a country find the environment so good they renege on training local people because they want to stay longer in the country themselves.

Above all, party congresses, such as the current one in Harare are important events for revaluation of failures and successes in work done in the past and for a recommitment to the revolution, in the case of Zimbabwe where many soldiers fell by the wayside and must be replaced by new ones to carry on with work to usher in a better new future socially, economically and politically.

Solidarity messages from sister political parties and ruling parties in Southern Africa and further abroad should help re-gird old revolutionary troops who survived the difficult long march as well as gird the new ones stepping into the shoes of the fallen ones to take the country forward into a brave new era.

But the bottom line remains and it is that those who put those leaders in power are watching how the leaders conduct themselves as servants of the people and waiting to punish those who shirk their responsibilities and to reward true patriots among them.