By Dumisani Dlodlo
ZANU PF was well on course to deliver on its electoral promises, amidst revelations that Government has created 3 million jobs in the artisanal mining sector alone in the last two years, the ruling party’s acting Spokesperson, Patrick Chinamasa has said.
Chinamasa made the remarks on Monday night during an interview on ZiFM’s The Platform.
He implored Zimbabweans not to let temporary setbacks facing the country, some of which were ignited by natural occurrences make them to turn a blind eye to the New Dispensation’s achievements.
“We have indeed touched the lives of our people directly and indirectly. They should not take temporary problems and turn a blind eye to our achievements.
“When we were talking about unemployment earlier, you did not give credit now that almost 3 million youngsters are in mining. You do not give credit for that. And this was because we loosened the restrictions on gold mining. In the past they would not have been able to do artisanal mining but we facilitated that.
“See what they are doing in mining, small scale artisanal miners are producing more gold. For me I would like to see them empowered with better tools, less degradation of our environment, of the rivers. But we should be able to say this is what we have been able to achieve,” he said.
Chinamasa said a number of mega projects being pursued by Government would be completed ahead of the 2023 harmonised elections.
“Come 2023, already on the basis of what I see happening or unfolding we should be able to come and say, Hwange a mega project would have been completed. We should also come to say come 2023 we have now a completely rehabilitated stretch of Beitbridge to Harare Road,” he said.
Chinamasa further said that the people centred ZANU PF policies continued to endear the ruling party with the electorate in the face of natural disasters.
“We were faced with a disaster, Cyclone Idai and people’s livelihoods were destroyed, homes, hospitals, clinics and schools destroyed but come to Chimanimani and Chipinge we were able to stand by the people and rehabilitate, see it for yourself.
“Come 2023, we are able to come and say we did our best with fighting Covid-19 with very minimal resources. We do not know when it is going to end. It look likes it is going to be with us for some time but we should be able to say we demonstrated our people centeredness in terms of what we did,” he said.
Chinamasa also said the ruling party abhors corruption as it demoralises the population and at the same time killing the culture of hard work.
“As far as ZANU PF is concerned our policy is that we are totally anti-corruption because what corruption does, it demoralises the population, it rewards the thief, it does not reward the most hardworking people and so overtime, the most hard working people will stop working and that is where the malaise can creep in and it kills initiatives, hard work, the work ethic,” Chinamasa said.
He also urged the Zimbabwe Republic Police to be professional in its fight against corruption.
“To law enforcement agencies. They should never arrest before investigation. They should never arrest on the say so of people who may be driven by malice,” cautioned Chinamasa.
“They should never arrest on the basis of what they read on social media. If you go by the social media nobody is innocent including the people who make the accusations. They make accusations that everybody is corrupt and so forth. I want evidence if I were prosecutor I would say if you make an accusation please back it up with evidence.”
