The poverty in Zimbabwe today is unacceptable because God blessed the country with a lot of natural resources

From experience, in terms of local community initiatives, I think I can give the Campfire Projects on Wildlife Preservation as an example. We have seen that the moment you introduce this concept, it starts on a good note but as time goes on, it becomes a preserve for a few people. The majority of the people in the local communities eventually do not benefit. So, if we are going to come up with an Act to promote local community ownership, we need to find ways to make sure that the broader community does not get excluded in the process because this is what has happened in most similar projects before.  We need to make sure that we increase the level of community level participation especially in the election or in the appointments of the committee members of such projects. The other thing that we need to fight for is to promote the spirit of devolution. I come from Matabeleland North, one of the most rural provinces of this country. It is one of the poorest provinces of this country and socially and economically speaking, Matabeleland North is far behind the rest of the country.   But in terms of natural resources, Matabeleland North is well endowed. God has blessed us as a province and where I come from in Hwange, we live on top of the coal. We are surrounded by the Victoria Falls, the Zambezi River and the Hwange National Park.  Mining and tourism alone could improve lives of the local communities but what has been happening in Matabeleland North is that whatever wealth we are producing is centralised and when it comes to us benefitting as a province, we get peanuts or crumbs.  The money that is supposed to develop Matabeleland North develops other parts of Zimbabwe.   We only have one proper town in Matabeleland North and that town is called Hwange. To an extent, we have another town called Victoria Falls but we do not have a city in the entire province.  The other day I was explaining to someone that if you take away franchises like Chicken Inn, we actually have two Chicken Inns in the entire province. One in Victoria Falls and one in Hwange.  Here in Harare, we’ve got two Chicken Inns on every street, together with other brands that most people in Matabeleland North have ever seen.

What does that mean? It means that in line with the spirit of the Constitution that seeks to promote devolution, if we are going to enact this community share ownership, it must be built on the foundation of devolution. To say that what the people of Matabeleland North are producing through these companies and investments, the profits that come out of that must be allocated to the local communities and at a local level. It must not be sent to Harare first because once it is sent to Harare, it never comes back to Matabeleland North.  We need to make sure that the principle of devolution is built to such an extent that bank accounts will be opened in Matabeleland North. Bank accounts will be opened at a local community level to make sure that whatever money these companies remit is actually remitted at a local level and does not need to be centralised. To that extent, it should be in-built in the Act that each and every committee that will be set up will have a local bank account and if a company is investing in that local community, it must remit the money into that bank account.  I also need to debate the proposed amount of 5%. I think the amount is very little.  Quoting from the Bible from the book of Malachi, Chapter 3, I think God personally has recommended 10% allocation. So, we should start from there. We should start from 10%. It can be more but we should start from 10%. We need to make sure that companies that come all the way from China do not leave 5% peanuts in Hwange. They must leave at least 10% and that amount should be invested in a local investment fund, in a local bank account in which the leadership, the committee members are elected in a very public and transparent way that involves community ownership.  If their term of office expires, they do not continue to be in office like we have seen in other previous projects. They must be removed democratically and they must make sure that the power of administering these community level ownership funds remains with the local communities instead of a few individuals like what we have seen before.

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The other thing that we need to talk about when we talk about community ownership is sustainable development especially from a point of view of climate change and protecting our natural resources and our environment. What we have seen in Hwange in the last 30 years is an example. We have seen companies violate environmental sustainability laws. The Environmental Management Authority has failed dismally to reign in these companies. The Environmental Management Act has not been able to stop these companies. So, what we need to do is to make sure that through these community ownerships, we need to give power to the local communities to protest.

In Hwange, recently we saw local communities in Ward 14 starting a demonstration on the road because there were some big trucks that were passing by, pouring dust into the community and they have been complaining for many years. They put blockages on the road, barricades on the road so that those big trucks do not pass in the community because the law enforcement agents are not forcing the big trucks not to pass in the local communities. We need to find ways to build it within the new law that local communities have the right to protest and should be protected by the law, should be supported by law enforcement agents such as the Zimbabwe Republic Police to enforce their right to protect their environment. Because these companies are destroying our environment, once they have finished, they leave the town and they go to another part of Zimbabwe and continue to exploit the communities. We need to make sure that they do not leave a destroyed environment for the local communities. We need to protect the environment for future generations. To that extent, we need to build it in the law that the local communities should be encouraged,  be allowed and  empowered to stand up to any company that deliberately destroys the environment in order to promote profit. So to that extent, I need to aid before the august House that it is a matter of urgency that we come up with these laws while at the same time making sure that we do not leave any place, we do not leave any community behind in making sure that we fight poverty.

Poverty is a curse, poverty is not a blessing, we must not accept poverty. The poverty that I see in Hwange today, the poverty that I see in Zimbabwe today is totally unacceptable because God has blessed this country with a lot of natural resources. God has blessed this country with more than 60 minerals. We have got platinum, gold, coal, diamonds, lithium and many others but we cannot continue to remain poor while foreigners come and mine our wealth and leave us poor. Thank you so much Madam Speaker.

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