Mohadi challenges Zanu-PF members

Vice President Kembo Mohadi has challenged party members to close ranks to ensure a crushing victory for President Mnangagwa in the forthcoming harmonised elections to enable him to deliver his vision of a middle-income country by 2030.

Addressing a bumper crowd at Tshovani Stadium here yesterday at a Zanu-PF star rally to drum up support for the ruling party ahead of polls set for July30, Mohadi urged party members to bury the hatchet after the primaries to make sure the party wins resoundingly.

VP Mohadi said differences caused by Zanu-PF internal polls held at the end of April were now a thing of the past, urging party members to work in unison to deliver victory for President Mnangagwa and the party.

He said Zimbabwe would be on course to become a middle-income country in 12 years' time if President Mnangagwa and Zanu-PF were voted into power in the coming elections.

"We are in the election season in which we must elect our leaders, especially President ED Mnangagwa. We know that you undertook primary elections and they didn't go well in other areas," said VP Mohadi.

"We must now bury the hatchet and focus on winning elections. We are now campaigning as Zanu-PF. All our differences and quarrels, let's put them aside and focus on winning elections," he said.

The VP urged party members to forgive and forget quarrels of the past.
"Amongst us, there were lots of squabbles with some members being branded Lacoste and others G40, but we are all Zanu-PF. In the party primaries, if you know that a G40 won, praise him but tell him to come to Zanu-PF forever. We should forgive and forget just like what President Mnangagwa did after the insults he endured at the nine interface rallies (under former president Robert Mugabe)," he said.

VP Mohadi urged Zimbabweans to vote for Zanu-PF, saying it had a track record of delivering on its election promises.
He said Zanu-PF brought independence to Zimbabwe after spearheading the war of liberation and also executed an epoch-making land redistribution programme.

"The Zanu-PF I am talking about delivers on its promises. The party (Zanu-PF) spoke way back about freedom and that chapter was delivered. The party spoke about land to the people and we delivered," he said.

"The remaining chapter now is political emancipation and economic independence. This is what the new dispensation born in November last year is targeting. This will be our core business after you give President Mnangagwa a new mandate on July 30."
He unpacked how the ZANU-PF government plans to economically transform Masvingo Province and the whole country.

"We promised that by 2030 Zimbabwe must be a middle income economy. First, we want the land to be used productively. We cannot force God to give us good rains every season hence the need to have water bodies, which harness water for irrigation farming," he said.

"Tugwi-Mukosi has vast opportunities which will change people's lives. Masvingo will have an additional 25 000ha under irrigation and our goal is to make the province hunger-free as sufficient food will be produced for our people.

"The dam (Tugwi-Mukosi) will see Masvingo getting 17 megawatts of electricity, enough to light up the whole province," said the VP.

The Vice President said Masvingo was poised to become one of the best developed regions in the country in the next 20 years, courtesy of its vast irrigation potential, thanks to Tugwi-Mukosi and other dams.

"Fish farming and licencing of Zimbabweans interested in the field of fisheries will be on for the people of Masvingo. We have islands in the dam which we can develop into tourism facilities, making Masvingo one of the most developed areas in the country within the coming 20 years," he said

VP Mohadi also said the Command Livestock Programme would boost Masvingo's cattle herd creating thousands of jobs thereby reducing unemployment.

"The Zimbabwe is open for business message is not for foreigners only but even you as Zimbabweans. We are not promising you spaghetti roads or airports, we are promising you real economic transformation, which is centred on wealth creation,'' he said.

"Masvingo has more cattle than any other province in the country. Those without cattle must benefit under the Command Livestock Programme. We want more milk, more beef and cattle to pay lobola," he said.

"Those with bigger farms, we have wild animals to give you. We just want your mandate by voting Zanu-PF for all this to be achieved."

Zanu-PF Masvingo provincial chair Ezra Chadzamira stressed the need for unity in the ruling party ahead of elections if Zanu-PF was to reclaim all the 26 House of Assembly seats in the province.

Present at the star rally was Minister for Provincial Affairs Josaya Hungwe, politburo members Munyaradzi Machacha, Marbel Chinomona and Lovemore Matuke, among others.