President Emmerson Mnangagwa yesterday gave his new cabinet one week to come up with quick win solutions to solve the country’s problems and said his secretary will give each minister a list of unimplemented projects and previous cabinet resolutions so that they can select their own priority projects.
Mnangagwa told his first cabinet meeting that when he said in his inaugural speech that he would be hitting the ground running he did not mean lifting Zimbabweans spiritually but bodily.
“You will recall that my acceptance speech underlined that we will hit the ground running. I used that figure of speech advisedly, all to underline a new ethos in administering and delivering public services and goods which must work to quantifiable and measurable targets which make visible impact on the ground. And the ground is where our people are presently, which means from the ground is where we must raise them starting today,” Mnangagwa said according to The Herald.
“I am not talking of lifting them spiritually, something we leave to the able prayers of our bishops, priests, reverends and pastors. I am talking of raising them bodily, which means Government-led interventions that address the social conditions of all our people; that raise communities to higher levels of welfare.
“As time is of the essence, we thus need to pursue high speed programme execution. I now wish to challenge you to think outside the box and come up with quick-win projects for implementation by each of your ministries in order to achieve the goals of my vision. In that context, you may wish to consult in your ministries on outstanding strategic programmes that can be quickly implemented within the framework of the vision of this Government. I have availed copies of my acceptance speech for each one of you to guide you in coming up with the priority projects.
“I have also instructed the Chief Secretary (to the President and Cabinet, Dr Misheck Sibanda) to assist you with details on unimplemented projects and previous Cabinet resolutions, from which you may identify areas for your priority attention. Out of this process, you should come up with a list of priority projects for presentation to the Cabinet office in a week’s time.” The President said the projects identified should form the Cabinet agenda and ensure it functions on the basis of target-based programmes, with clear deliverables within set timeframes.
“I am sure you are aware that the advent of this dispensation has generated high expectations amongst all categories of our citizens, development partners and other stakeholders, who rightly see it as the dawn of a new era for Zimbabwe.
“Let us, therefore, proceed to deliver in line with the objectives of this target-driven Cabinet. Our inaugural meeting comes against the backdrop of major socio-economic challenges that need to be urgently addressed. These include the scourge of corruption, the current liquidity crunch, low foreign direct investment inflows, low diaspora remittances, subdued export earnings and heavy dependency on imports,” the President said.
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