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Zanu-PF must pay for empty manifesto promises - PDP

by Jacob Mafume
22 Mar 2017 at 11:36hrs | Views
It is a year before the next election; ZANUPF is set to return with another bag of empty promises packaged in a Manifesto. The People's Democratic Party contents that even when ZANUPF became the defacto, illegitimate government they still have the obligation to deliver by virtue of occupying office.

In their 2013 election Manifesto titled Indigenize, Develop and Employ and later in the government economic blueprint, ZANUPF made a lot of promises failing to deliver on both fronts.
ZANUPF made a sensational promise that they would create 2,2 million jobs if they get  a five year term translating to 440 000 jobs a year. On average ZANUPF must have created 176 0000 jobs as of now.

Instead hundreds of thousands of workers lost their jobs with more than 6000 companies closing between 2013 and 2015 owing to the hostile economic environment that ZANUPF reverted to after the Government of National Unity.

On top of failure ZANUPF deliberately exposed workers, Chinamasa started pursuing a neo-liberal agenda choosing labour market flexibility, the broader ZANUPF prefer state-capitalism but both agree on an easily disposable labour force hence the ruthless amendments to the labour laws.

ZANUPF also promised to build houses to deal with the housing backlog pretending to be a saviour for the masses who do not have houses. It is now clear that they just wanted to work on the desperation of home seekers.

After four years ZANUPF have exposed many people to politically connected land barons who swindle them of their hard earned cash in an economy where money is hardly circulating.
Some, who were allocated stands, had their houses demolished by the order of the same ZANUPF government whose structures were at the centre of distribution.

In ZIMASSET, ZANUPF highlights a fake transformation agenda from an extractive economy to value addition. Four years down the line the People's Democratic is observing that ZANUPF continues to parcel out mining licenses with no plan at all to process minerals locally.

The biggest beneficiaries of the minerals remain foreigners more than 60 000 polishing jobs were created in India solely from the Marange diamonds.

ZANUPF promised to deal with poverty, deliver social services as well as routing out corruption.
As at present the hospitals are in bad shape, lives are lost because of curable diseases.A majority of Zimbabweans are sinking in abject poverty and corruption is rampant the local daily newspapers are full of corruption stories especially of ZANUPF characters. State organised corruption cartels are the order of the day a good example is the creation of a police state which has a tolling mandate on the roads.

Our Party is of the view that Zimbabwe needs a credible government that can lead a process of constructing ourselves out of the crisis.

As we mention in the Holistic Program for Economic Transformation (HOPE) the infrastructure backlog in Zimbabwe provides an opportunity of creating thousands of jobs. Reconstruction is part of our broader plan called Zimbabwe Emergency Rescue Strategy (ZERST).

Re-Industrialisation can also compliment the job creation agenda, in HOPE we talk about the Zimbabwe Emergency Recovery Fund (ZERF) aimed at resuscitating distressed industries, help the economy spend itself out of the crisis and create jobs.

We emphasise on a rural housing scheme, in our rural development plan aimed at uplifting of the Zimbabwean woman who spends much of their lives looking for water and firewood. Our plan includes electrification and also provision of running water to the low cost houses.

There is also need for resolving the land question in line with the constitution, institute land tenure in communal lands, conduct a land audit, rationalise land use, deal with irrigation infrastructure and creation of markets in particular the Agriculture Commodity Exchange which was abolished in 2000.

Our party is also of the view that there must be a raft of mining reforms including on transparency on mining claims, a proper contract negotiation framework which must include parliament and a shift to value addition.

The People's Democratic Party will develop a model Diamond Act which will deal with the following
  • A minimum retention cap obliging the state to keep a certain percentage of diamonds in their raw form in Zimbabwe.
  • A retention right for the mining province
  • A value addition framework which includes a percentage of jobs to be reserved for local communities.
  • A development package to directly benefit the locals and rehabilitation of the degraded environment
  • Revenue collection mechanism including a ZIMRA official at every stage of the chain starting when raw gems are mined.
  • A publish what you pay system for all the mining actors
  • Protection of environmental rights of the citizens



Source - Jacob Mafume PDP Spokesperson