Fellow Zimbabweans, Your Excellencies, Members of the Diplomatic Community, Honourable Members of Parliament, Mayors and Councillors, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, it is an honour for me to present AGENDA 2020 which defines the year 2020 as the decisive year for dealing with the broad challenges facing the nation.
Today we gather here at Stodart HALL in Mbare, this great place of history, a place of hope and inspiration which has served as a revolutionary springboard for many of our country’s nationalist trailblazers, religious torchbearers as well as sports and artistic luminaries among many other leading lights who have, over the years, scaled the heights as the “Class of Stodart Hall”, in search of a Zimbabwe that the people want but which remains a pipe dream TO BE PURSUED, BUT YET TO BE ATTAINED.
Because we are meeting in January and given that it is our first time to do so this year, let me take this opportunity to extend to everyone compliments of the new year.
But as I do so, I’m alive to the fact that compliments of the new year have already been superseded by complications of the last year, which have followed us into the new year; and which are standing in the way of any prospect for a happy and prosperous year for Zimbabweans.
This year, 2020, is an important year not least because it marks the end of a decade and the start of a new one.
Over the last decade, and indeed over the last two decades, Zimbabweans have not been able to realistically wish each other a happy and prosperous new year, with any credibility. The last decade, and the one before it, have seen the destruction of happiness and prosperity in our country in ways that are unprecedented.
Throughout the last decade, Zimbabweans have moved from one year to another, on a wing and a prayer while plunging from crisis to crisis and darkness to darkness, with oppression and the brutal denial of basic human rights as the order of the day.
We declare 2020 a year of breakthrough in reclaiming the people’s victory and 2020-2030 a decade of hope rapid radical transformation.
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