President’s speech and more pictures
We publish here, the speech delivered by President Mugabe to the 106th Ordinary Session of the ruling ZANU-PF Central Committee meeting at ZANU-PF Headquarters in Harare yesterday, September 8, 2017.
I EXTEND a very warm welcome to all of you to this 106th Ordinary Session of the Central Committee.
We are holding this meeting against the background of a very good agricultural season for our country.
In this regard, we should hold our heads high, proud that the Land Reform Programme which our own party and the Government have religiously pursued over the years, has been vindicated.
This is very good news indeed to both our party and Government, makorokoto, amhlope.
We are approaching another agricultural season with forecasts for good rains again this year.
When we go back to our constituencies, I want us to urge our people to start preparing in earnest for this agricultural season so it becomes a build up on the previous one.
That is the message we should have uppermost on our lips.
We have seen how much the Presidential Input Support scheme and the Command Agriculture for special maize and small grains production have contributed to food production and food security this year.
Let us keep the momentum in order to ensure another bumper harvest next year.
Preparations for grain production have to begin now, drawing expertise and sound advice from our agricultural extension officers.
I am aware that these agricultural schemes faced some challenges last year, including not so timeous distribution of inputs to the contracted farmers.
We delayed in some cases, there are some people who didn’t get anything.
I have no doubt in mind that with the support we are giving our farmers coupled with the farming skills and experience they have acquired so far, another bumper harvest is guaranteed next year.
Zimbabwe is well on the way to regain its lost breadbasket status.
In other sectors of the economy such as mining there is great potential for economic growth if we employ proper and well managed exploitation of our God-given gold and diamond resources.
We are going to leverage on diamond and other minerals alongside agriculture so that together we drive our economic recovery trajectory.
Our economy is slowly on the rebound, I am sure you’ll agree.
This fact was confirmed to us yesterday at State House by non other than our very own business community.
The meeting we had was a very good meeting with the captains of industry.
But every one of us must be mindful of vote in the individual contributions we can make towards economic recovery and development.
Our people should be applauded for their resilience in the face of externally-induced economic hardships, when the economy is hard because of drought or other intervening circumstances.
Our people don’t cry nor will they rush to other countries just because of those hardships.
Yes, we will move to that end to see whether they can get food for their families, but running away from the country and becoming a refugee elsewhere is not that pleasant even to do.
The West, European Union that is, is not about to remove its illegal sanctions against us anytime soon, no.
But that should not dampen our revolutionary spirit.
We remain firm and where we stand we shall continue to stand.
Revolutionaries don’t give up in the face of challenges.
They instead remain resilient and resolute seeking solutions one-after-another to the challenges until final victory is attained.
In the business world, enterprising people draw their inspiration from challenges as well from which they create opportunities for themselves.
That is the spirit and attitude we want cultivated among our own people.
Determination forms the core of the spirit which saw us confronting and defeating our erstwhile colonisers and it is that determination which is carrying us right through.
We don’t cry, we strengthen ourselves to bear the challenges as we work out possible solutions to those challenges.
As we mind the economic front, let us not forget that meaningful development will only take place in a peaceful environment.
We therefore would like to pay tribute to our Defence and Security Forces who have since Independence consistently maintained peace and tranquillity in Zimbabwe.
We remain proud of them and assured of peaceful general elections next year.
Recently, we have witnessed concerted efforts by opposition political parties to coalesce and fight ZANU-PF as one and it’s generally driven assemblage of seven political parties was hurriedly put together last week, giving birth to the so-called MDC-Alliance.
Fortunately for ZANU-PF, these political parties are as divided as ever fighting over leadership positions.
We know of course that they are creatures of the West whose sole purpose is to dislodge
ZANU-PF from power, but really as they come together as a bundle, in one blow against a bundle will send the bundle in pieces.
So will not need more than one blow for the one bundle of divided persons who purport to represent parties but you can’t see the parties that they are actually representing individually except MDC that is trying to lead them once again and it’s not disgraceful for both vana Biti nanaWelsman Ncube after quitting the MDC just yesterday.
They are now getting back to the same party from which they once pretended they were in ah.
Vakanotadza kuzviitira saka vakudzoka zvino nemanyadzi vachivigiridza kuti vakuuya nezvimaparty kuzojoiner kwaTsvangirai.
Unoti Tsvangirai haasi kuzviona here kuti ndivo vanhu vaye vanezuro hazvina mhosva kuti vakuzvita vanani chero vauya vakangouya ndizvozvo ndovapatikira and it will be MDC? They want it to be called MDC-Alliance. Alliance does matter, what matters is that they are MDC, hana kupusa ipapo.
However, we also know that these opposition political parties put together cannot dislodge the ruling party.
The secret to ZANU-PF’s victories one after another over the years, arises from its appeal to the people, people-oriented party.
It has policies with objectives to serve the people. We don’t just pretend to serve the people. We actually serve the people and therefore it has an appeal to the people.
It is sincere, it is productive, is revolutionary, it is counter against our erstwhile enemies and we are a mass party. We listen to what the masses say.
The secret to ZANUPF’s victories one after another over the years, arises from its appeal to the people, peopleoriented party. It has policies with objectives to serve the people. We don’t just pretend to serve the people. We actually serve the people and therefore it has an appeal to the people. It is sincere, it is productive, is revolutionary, it is counter against our erstwhile enemies and we are a mass party. We listen to what masses say.
It wins elections on the basis of the popularity of the people-centred development programmes and you have just been listening to VaMade who will take over after this to tell you in brief zvirongwa zvamangwana nekuti zvirongwa zvatakaita zvakatisvitsa pano zvemass agriculture yedu yatakaita zvatipa hupfumi hwakati kuti hwakabva kuagriculture.
In this regard, I would like to pay special tribute to our Youth League for the wonderful rallies held as the Youth Interface programmes continue to move from province to province.
Mangwana tirikupedzisa mainterface programmes aya mumaprovinces, rural provinces tozosarirwa nemadhorobha Harare neBulawayo.
The massive crowds that turn up at interface rallies are a clear indication that our people have indeed been triggered into the election mood or election mode as they say.
We commend the Youth League for taking the lead and in showing us the way we should conduct our campaigns.
But as we go into next year’s elections, we cannot solely hope to win by riding on the sheer popularity of our party.
We have to make adequate preparations to ensure that victory is certain.
We must galvanise the electorate to go and vote for us.
Our party has to take an active interest now in the registration of voters. Get our people to register patsva. Hapana anoti ndakaregister kare, hazvichashande.
Tose, tose tinosungirwa kunyoresa patsva and as you go back to your constituencies please get down to the ward level in mobilising people to go together get registered to vote.
Vanhu vose mumawards enyu muone kuti varegister here zvechokwadi.
Everyone has to register afresh in order to participate in next year’s elections.
Our people must be sensitised to the requirements of the biometric voter registration exercise which is about to begin country wide.
I wish to conclude by paying tribute to our own discipline . . . and sense of unity when insults and vilifications were thrown about.
The President and the First lady had their share of these insults and vilifications.
Several ministers and others, and these accusations completely false, completely malicious and emanating through sources.
Tinoda kuti vazvisvipe vanga vachiita zvinhu izvozvi izvi and maprovinces mazviri kubuda ndiwo atinokumbirisa kuti asanoona kuti ndavanani?
Zviri kubva papi nepapi pechokwadi, zviri kuitirwei?
Zviregedzwe. Pachivanhu tinoti svipirai pasi muti puu hatichazviita.
Our party must remain united at all levels from the grassroots to the top.
A united party knows how grievances within the party are corrected and how differences should be resolved.
We seek solutions amongst ourselves kana paine zviri kutadzika. Zvitadzo zvamungacheme nazvo ngazviuyeka tozvitarisa pamwe chete tikurukure kana pachitorwa punishment inotorwa, vanorangwa vachirangwa kwete kungoshaudha.
Iyo yakanzi social media iyoyo iyi maiwe, yakatiparira.
Kutukana kuripo, kunyombana kuripo mazwi anotaurwa imomo!
Tava vanhu vakaita sei, vana vakaita sei vatirikuzvara? Ummm hatingade Zanu yerudzi urwu inotongwa nemusocial media aiwa.
Here muCentral Committee is the place where our policies are made, resolutions to problems are debated and possibly finally accepted and are deemed to be accepted, hence tinozenge tiine zvatakatarirwa kuti tiite nekuti nyaya hadziperere muno.
Munosungirwawo kuzono repotawo kuCongress kuti zvatakaita when kuCongress was not able to meet ndezvizvi nezvizvi nezvizvi.
Mirawo yatakaisa ndeiyiyi, neiyi neiyi as Central Committee ndosaka murimuno ndimi vatongi veparty, kubva Congress isati yakugona kugara pasi kuti iite murawu.
Kunyangwe ikagara pasi kuti iite murawu ikatambira zvimwe zvabva kuno. Kunozopera makore mashanu isati yagara pasi zvakare. Asi vanenge varipo tisu Central Committee.
Politburo ndeyekuita se executive yedu to get things done, resolutions and the rules that emanate here ichichengeteswa. This should see the light of the day. Enough supervision must be done, that’s Politburo.
Reports then must come to the Central Committee just as VaMade has been reporting to you and he will continue to report and finishes his report just now.
So we don’t want to see leaders quarrelling in public or taking each other to court.
Zvoreva kuti party yedu yatadza kushanda ipapo.
That is not a good example at all . . . We would be giving to our youths, who are future leaders, examples which are bad in nature and not progressive
But let us work together, now on the eve of elections.
We are not to be divided but to see each other well nyangwe takatukana let bygones be bygones. Unity, unity and more unity is what we need.
So let’s stand together. If you are divided and scold me and you say you are a member of the party, does that build the party or destroy it? Avoid therefore stances, actions, insults that destroy or divide the party
Always say there is a way to solving whatever grievance, whatever offence one believes has been committed, whatever crime within the party in terms of the rules and regulations of the party….this is where we solve our problems, this is where we are going to insult each other. Let that take place here behind closed doors. This is the house of solutions, the house of ameliorating grievances, the house where justice must be done, it’s the house where we must exercise our minds together, work together, stand together, ensure we must always stand together, because divided we shall fall. Ngiyalibonga, ndinokutendai. Pamberi nekubatana, phambili lokubambana.
Pasi neMDC.