If you look at Manicaland, the chiefs in the area, what do they have, nothing and yet they are the custodians of the Community Ownership Trust. It just shows that there needs to be far review on that in terms of the performance of the C.O.T’s. I was hoping that the State of the Nation Address would be able to look into some of these initiatives which Government brought about to see whether they are working or not. A review is certainly needed in terms of some of these.
There is also an issue of the indigenisation policy – policy inconsistency. The Minister, Hon. Zhuwao says one thing, the Minister of Finance says the other thing, and the monetary authority says the other thing. This is one Government, there is no opposition in that Government, it is all ZANU PF but they behave as if they are opposition within the governing party. So, to me what are they really doing in Government? They then expect to labour the President, to issue a statement overriding Hon. Zhuwao’s statement, Hon. Chinamasa’s statement, Dr. Mangudya’s statement. I am just trying to prove to you the work the President has to do, but he does not have to do the work, he can make it easier for himself by reshuffling the Cabinet and ensuring that competent people are appointed
Mr. Speaker Sir, ZANU PF has got a lot of competent people who can be Ministers, some are young and vibrant but they have not been given the opportunity. The State of the Nation Address, you cannot ignore the performance of the Cabinet of the day. Cabinet is responsible for the implementation of the policies that Government brings on board. So, you can see pretty well that the Cabinet has not been performing. Equally; there was no mention of a reshuffle where we believe that a new broom sweeps clean.
Mr. Speaker Sir, you have the issue of the SDGs, where are we as a nation? MDGs are done and SDGs are there. There are 17 of them. How do you dovetail the SDGs in what you are doing as a Government? There was no mention of that whatsoever, which means that we are not part of the global village? We are on our own. These SDGs are key in terms of Zimbabwe being at the same level. They are key in terms of us being a part of them.
I want to equally talk about the issue on unemployment. I totally agree with Hon. Simbanegavi that energy has improved. Energy has improved in the households and not in the industries. There is no industry. To me industry is what drives the nation. It is not our houses. We have no production happening in our houses. To me we were supposed to see industry taking off and producing. By having to produce then we can thank – the reason why we have so much electricity is because there is no industry. The day there is industry we will not have electricity. It is important that Bulawayo industry takes off. That was the hub of industry. When you go there, it is a sorry state. It is no longer Bulawayo that it used to be. We used to go to Bulawayo knowing very well that we will get everything that we want. Bulawayo has become another province belonging to South Africa because everything you see there is coming from South Africa. So, what are we producing as Zimbabweans?
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