Success comes with commitment

THE year continues to be very promising for Zimbabwe, for it is a year when the nation is coming out of the woods to take its rightful position on the international stage.

Mother Nature has been very generous, as the 2016/17 cropping season saw us getting more than enough rainfall, resulting in bumper harvests for all rain-fed crops.

Cynics thought the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation turnaround blueprint was an election gimmick, and are now eating humble pie as they realise Government meant business, since it is now ensuring that all four clusters under Zim-Asset are fulfilled, before the next cycle after the 2018 elections.

With food security and nutrition now a reality, the nation should never again talk of lack of food, considering that there are more than 10 000 water bodies waiting to be utilised allyear round.

Since the agro-industry is at the apex, what it means is that apart from ensuring food security, it is also an industry that should be the bedrock for employment creation.

It is therefore time every citizen, young people in particular, realise that in as much as they are the future, the agro-industry is also the future because it leads to poverty eradication, infrastructure and utilities development, value addition and beneficiation. Finally, no meaningful fiscal reforms can take place when food security is under threat.

Of course, we are not there yet, but for a country that has been flogged for two decades the way we have, we can confidently say that despite nagging challenges, a scenario not unique to us, we can pat ourselves on the back for a job well-done.

Mega projects such as Command Agriculture, construction of Tokwe-Mukosi dam and the dualisation of the Beitbridge-Harare-Chirundu Highway cannot be undertaken by a nation on its knees.

Detractors will always call Zimbabwe a failed state, but that’s their opinion. If we had paid attention to the scaremongering and alarmist tactics, we would never have undertaken the Second Chimurenga, let alone the land reform programme that now promises to change the face of the region — economically and socially.

Thus the nation’s trajectory looks more positive with each passing day, and there is more to learn and rectify as we rise to take our rightful place in the community of nations. Just like the revolution was not an overnight job, Zimbabwe’s industrialisation will also be an uphill struggle that will have its heroes and traitors.

It is against this backdrop that Zimbabwe’s Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, speaking at an inaugural Command Agriculture multi-stakeholder co-ordinating workshop in Harare on Wednesday, poignantly said Zimbabwe had come of age, and can do it.

“When we initially proposed this model, our biggest task and challenge was how we are going to finance it . . . When we asked the private sector to come on board the finances that were put on the table were more than what we required. Nothing came from outside Zimbabwe,” said VP Mnangagwa.

He added, “So ourselves in our various sub-sectors and endeavours in the economy have the capacity to finance our own programmes and this is an example where we have done it ourselves.”

We have said it before that Rome was not built in a day and that it is through unity of purpose between Government and private partners that meaningful success can be realised.

As we enter the winter chapter of Command Agriculture, and as the command mode spreads to other economic sub-sectors, Zimbabweans must always remember that they have the capacity to do it.

We have always strived to be masters of our destiny. No one has to beg us to do it for we owe it to today’s and tomorrow’s generations.