Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa on 12 February launched the ruling ZANU-PF party’s campaign for the 26 March by-elections.
In his address, he outlined the ruling party’s development roadmap and the party’s promises to the electorate.
Below is a list of some of the promises made by President Mnangagwa:
We have put ZWL42.5 billion for devolution (2022 national budget), if you divide by 10, at least every province should get ZWL4,2 billion. The funds will also cascade to every district.
As the central government, while we acknowledge fixing roads, refuse collection and clinics is the role of local authorities, we decided to intervene and we are now fixing roads in urban areas.
On water issues, in Harare we are building Kunzvi dam, the contractors are now on site. Once complete it will supply water to Harare, Chitungwiza and Ruwa.
In Bulawayo, in all these years, the city has been faced with water shortages. When the Second Republic came in, we went to Nyamandlovu Aquifer, we sunk boreholes and built a pump station and a water pipeline to Bulawayo. We reduced water deficit in Bulawayo. The city needs 165ML per day and we are now at 151ML per day.
We are in the process of constructing the Gwayi-Shangani Dam, we expect to complete the project at the end of 2022. We will build a pipeline from Gwayi – Shangani Dam to Bulawayo and we are using local companies, they are the ones digging the trenches to lay the pipeline.
At the end of the year, Bulawayo will have excess water to an extent that if one wants to bath three times a day, they can do so.
At the end of two and a half years, three years from now, every national road would have been widened, dualised or modernised, without any debt and this will be done by local companies.
We have settlements in Harare South, Epworth and Caledonia and we sat down and agreed to issue residents with title deeds.
We gave money to the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development led by Professor (Amon) Murwira to buy equipment for Geo-Spatial Survey.
We have 35 000 villages in Zimbabwe, in three years every village will have a solar-powered borehole. After three years, there is no village in Zimbabwe that will not have clean water and a communal garden.
When the Second Republic took over, our mineral revenue was around $2.8 billion a year. Now we have determined that by next year 2023 we will be at $12 billion a year, within three to four years, from $2.8 billion to $12 billion.
We will get to a time when one will be born in the village, raised there, attend a school with computers, proceed to High School, and university in the same province, and get job as an engineer without having to move to Harare.
We have ongoing projects in Mangwe, Matabeleland South, we will install solar-powered boreholes and we will install cold rooms. Instead of transporting their produce to Bulawayo, those from Bulawayo will be going there to purchase the product. Each member of the family working on the project will be given US$60 every month.
Industry and Commerce Minister Sekai Nzenza told us in Cabinet that over 75 percent of products in the shelves in supermarkets are produced locally. We want to go above 80 percent in the production of all the commodities found in supermarkets.
We want to increase wheat production, we need 240 000 metric tonnes of wheat every year. When we came into power we were producing between 70 and 80 000 metric tonnes of wheat and we have since increased that to 220 000 metric tonnes. In the next two seasons, we will be able to produce enough wheat for ourselves.
We were told that Covid-19 patients who were admitted to hospital did not have oxygen. The ventilators did not have oxygen. We then put together a team of scientists led by Professor Murwira and we formed Verified Engineering. Within 18 months we were able to construct a factory in Mutare and we are now producing medical oxygen. We took it for international certification and the purity level must be at 95.8 percent. Ours is at 99 percent. Our plant produces 50 tonnes of oxygen per day. The health ministry needs 150 tonnes of medical oxygen per month. In three days we produce enough medical oxygen for our country. The rest of the days we produce surplus and we sell to those who are in need.
When we came to office as the Second Republic we used to gain US$3.2 million in revenue per year. We have now, inside two years, grown to US$9 billion per year, we have never reached this throughout our history as independent Zimbabwe. This year we are looking to go beyond US$9 billion a year in terms of hard currency revenue.
