What the Herald said when the farm mechanization programme was commissioned in June 2007

Other MDC legislators who benefited were Mr Tongai Matutu, Mr Njabuliso Mguni, Mr Jealous Sansole, Senator Sinampande H. Madolo, Senator Greenfield Nyoni, Ms Editor Matamisa and Mr Lovemore Moyo.

Also on the list of notable beneficiaries were Mr Edgar Tekere, Dr Ibbo Mandaza, former Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries president Mr Kumbirai Katsande, current CZI president Mr Callistus Jokonya, Delta chief executive Mr Joe Mutizwa, Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce president Mrs Marah Hativagone, former Commercial Farmers’ Union president Mr Doug Taylor-Freeme (Makonde District), Dr Robbie Mupawose and Mr Timothy Chiganze.

Institutions of higher learning that benefited were Solusi University, National University of Science and Technology, Bindura University of Science Education and Midlands State University.

The following white farmers also benefited: Mr Paul Dollar (Mazowe), Mr Chris Hougood (Seke), Mr Jeremy Vaughan (Kwekwe), Mr Dawie Joubert (Chipinge), Mr Oliver Hendrick (Mwenezi), Mr A.S.J. Rosenfels (Umguza), Mr Bistol Kerwood (Beitbridge) and Mr Burger Naude, who is believed to be Indian.

Reserve Bank Governor Dr Gideon Gono said the programme cuts across the political and social divide.

“Feeding the country may not be left to one region, political party, gender or business community, but is a shared responsibility,” said Dr Gono.

Cde Mugabe said prominent in Government’s preferred way of allocating resources was the elimination of corruption, favouritism and discrimination of whatever nature.

President Mugabe has repeatedly urged the opposition to be nationalistic, homegrown and to join forces with Government to defend Zimbabwe’s sovereignty and independence.

At the burial of the late Vice President Cde Simon Muzenda in 2003, Cde Mugabe hailed the MDC officials who joined thousands of Zimbabweans to bury the national hero at the National Heroes Acre in Harare.

“So kushamwari dzedu dzeMDC dziri pano tinovati aiwa you are also Zimbabweans. Sadza ratinodya rakafanana, tinodya matumbu embudzi akamonwa tinoada zvikuru,” Cde Mugabe said then.

He told the mourners that Zanu-PF and MDC were “sons of the soil and they should behave like sons of the soil”.

The President’s remarks therefore came true yesterday when a coterie of MDC officials was among beneficiaries of the mechanisation programme, which is a phase of the land reform programme.

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