Devolution: Manicaland to hit the ground running
Government will soon roll out the concept of devolution in line with provisions of the Constitution. On Tuesday last week, Cabinet approved principles of the Provincial Councils and Administration (Amendment) Bill which spells out the mechanisms of decentralisation and devolution. Our Senior Reporter Tendai Mugabe (TM) last week got in touch with Minister of State for Manicaland Province Dr Ellen Gwaradzimba (EG) to assess the preparedness of the province to implement devolution. Read on . . .
TM: How ready are you as Manicaland province to implement the concept of devolution? EG: Manicaland is more than ready and has always been ready for the devolution. I think the idea of devolution is not a new thing at all. Ever since we started the constitution-making process it was one of the topical issues under discussion. It has been one of the wishes of the people, not just of Manicaland, but in Zimbabwe as a whole that decentralisation of power and authority from central Government to the provinces will produce efficiency and effectiveness in terms of both economic, political and social growth. Why do I say we are ready as Manicaland? We have already established sectoral clusters where we are saying the experts in agriculture group together and come up with a development agenda in that area, the experts in forestry, experts in tourism, mining, education and social welfare come together and come up with a development agenda for Manicaland. We have all what it takes to be a great province. We are endowed with natural endowments in every district which include minerals almost in all districts. We have gold, diamonds and other minerals in Manicaland. Besides the gemmology centre, we had a workshop where we were discussing the need to promote and support artisanal miners. Gone are the days when we labelled our own youths, women and men as illegal gold panners. The fact that there are so many of them engaged in this illegal gold panning it means they see an opportunity for growth. We want to increase our mining by legalising and regularising the operations so that it is done in an orderly fashion. This requires support in terms of financial, in terms of the equipment, to do the mining and Metropolitan Bank is a partner in that regard and the Confederation of Mining Organisations in Manicaland is spearheading that. We have been looking for investors, both local and international, to come and partner with us. We have a team from Belarus, who are doing alluvial gold mining in Penhalonga and we are also supporting Redwing Mine, which has recently been facing challenges with capitalisation, but we are intervening and supporting them so that we keep them on board as one of our biggest gold mines in Manicaland. Then we go to tourism, which is one of our greatest strengths in terms of economic development. We have got mountains, Nyanga, very scenic views all over in Manicaland. Actually every district has tourist attraction centres. We have water bodies where we can promote agriculture through irrigation. We can actually harvest water and increase our dams in Manicaland. The elections of provincial councillors have already been done. They are in place. What we have been waiting for is the blueprint or the framework that guides the operations of the provincial councils. So we are more than ready. Now that Parliament has approved the operation of the provincial councils it means we are ready to start work in earnest. TM: In terms of specific projects in line with devolution, may you highlight and explain some of the key projects you think may help your province to prosper. EG: Manicaland is in the process of setting up a gemmology centre where we are going to be doing the polishing and value addition to our diamonds and other minerals in the province. Very soon we are going to do the groundbreaking ceremony in Fern Valley near the Manicaland State University. That is where the School of Mines in Bulawayo is going to set up the gemmology centre. The funds have been made available, the space is there and what is left now is the ground-breaking ceremony. It is going to be almost like a university in terms of operations and it is not going to be limited to diamonds, but all minerals that are of value in Manicaland. In the education sector, we have got the Manicaland State University of Applied Sciences that is underway. The project has been on the cards, started on a small scale in conjunction with Midlands State University and we are saying it’s high time Manicaland State University of Applied Sciences stands on its own. All the other provinces have State universities and we are saying we need a State university of our own. We have set up a steering committee that is going to push on the establishment of this outstanding institution of higher learning in Manicaland. We are adopting the satellite centre approach where we are not going to have a high concentration of students at one place, but the satellite centres are going to focus on specialisation where the centre in Chipinge will look at horticulture, then in Nyanga we are going to have the school of medicine, in Makoni we are going to have the school of agriculture and the Fern Valley campus will have science and engineering. In the area of ICT and trade, we are busy preparing for a Smart City Summit to be held on 30 November 2018. The Smart City concept is an approach that has been established worldwide where we are going to talk about development using smart technologies. This summit is going to be the first of its kind in Zimbabwe and we are inviting His Excellency the President and all the other business practitioners and economists, where we are saying come, let’s put our heads together and see how we can embrace technology in building our economies. Prominent speakers have been lined up to give addresses that are related to technology and development. In terms of tourism, we have lined up a number activities to promote tourism. It has declined over the years, but we are saying as we grow our economy it’s one area where we want to put our energies. We have the infrastructure in terms of hotels, some of which have been abandoned and we want to resuscitate them and promote tourism through youth and women. We also want to promote domestic tourism. I went to China on an exchange programme and learnt a lot on how they value and promote domestic tourism. We have tourist attraction centres throughout the province and we are saying it is a very simple way of raising income, with local people coming to know our country better rather than having foreigners know our country better than us.
Read the full interview on www. herald.co.zw