While ED's critics keep talking, our president is fulfilling his promises

The Zimbabwean president has started his mandate to rule Zimbabwe for the next five years. He made many sweeping promises on his way to victory on Election Day. After he took the oath of office on 26th August 2018 ED was the obliged to keep his promises. The promises he made are very difficult to keep but they do not call him crocodile for nothing.

Inviting companies and investors to come and invest in Zimbabwe. Companies move to other countries to pursue higher profits, and ED has to make the country attractive and conducive for business.  He cannot force them to come to Zimbabwe if the ground is not ripe for business. The question is whether he can make it profitable to do so. It is conducive for Zimbabwe because labour is much cheaper in Africa than other countries. ED is not advocating for a cheap labour pot but is advocating for food on the table for all.

ED has promised tax cuts and regulatory relief, but those are minor expenses for most companies, particularly in comparison to their payrolls. The removing of some tax seems detrimental to our national pocket but this is just a temporary setback. Revive Zimbabwean steel-making and coal-mining industries.

The productivity of the coal industry has decreased roughly tenfold .The work that once required 10 miners now requires just one. Steel making has undergone a similar transformation. That is by far the most important reason employment in both industries has declined precipitously. Most of those jobs are never coming back. But ED promised to make Zisco a steel hub again. ED promised to give Zisco its former glory. Kwekwe will be a steel land again this the closed steel companies will spring to life like the plants after the first rains.

Demand for coal has also declined thanks to a revolution in the production of natural gas and, to a lesser extent, other alternative energy sources. This, too, is a development that ED lacks the power to reverse, but with the help of every Zimbabwean the steel industry is coughing slowly back to life. This was a fundamental promise made by ED DURING THE CAMPAIGN. Zimbabwe will breathe again.
Increase Zimbabwean economic growth to more than 4 percent a year.

There are only two ways to increase economic growth: Increase the number of workers, or increase productivity, the amount the average worker produces. The news is not good on either front. The growth of the Zimbabwean work force is slowing as the working class migrate to other countries and those left in Zimbabwe turning to deals without production. And ED has promised fewer restrictions on immigration, increasing another source of workers. At the same time, productivity has increased over the last few months at an average annual pace of just 1.3 percent and there is no evidence that it will not get better.

The result is that annual economic growth .will average 2.1 percent in the five full years since the last recession, and is on a similar trajectory this year.

Invest in infrastructure to create jobs.

ED will find FULL support for his proposal to create jobs and stimulate the economy by building and repairing highways, bridges, water systems and other public works. He already has over two thirds majority and all will be singing the same song progress and progress.

ED will need to offer tax breaks to private companies in return for infrastructure investments, notably because the government is able to borrow money at exceptionally low rates.

OPENING THE COUNTRY FOR BUSINESS.

The client care at our airport is appalling and indeed bad. The speed at which the immigration officers take is disheartening. The rudeness one encounters at the airport is out of this world. In order to achieve our electoral promises ED needs to revamp the immigration and Zimra staff at our borders. The lazy ones need to be fired and client care must be a must. Investors must feel the welcoming mood from the airport instead of regretting making Zimbabwe a choice for development.

ED must weed out corruption and remove the Police from the roads. The country which strives on corruption only benefits the few corrupt leaders.

Reduce federal business and personal taxes.
ED has promised to reduce taxation of businesses and households. This will encourage business to bloom. Zimbabwe must not only be consuming nation but a production and producing nation.
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President Mnangagwa promised in his inaugural address that his administration would be guided by one "crucial conviction: that a nation exists to serve its citizens." He went on to say that "every decision will be made to benefit Zimbabwean workers and families." His first year in office must be the story of promises kept.

And while the president's critics reflect on eight months full of sound and fury, the president and his supporters will take satisfaction in a year of successes despite unyielding opposition.

By every measure of personal and national prosperity, the nation is better off than it was one year ago. The ED administration has overseen a renewed respect for citizenship. Gone is the lofty sounding rhetoric of sanctions, Zimbabwe must make it through with or without sanctions.

The MDC must not diagnose our president. it must Diagnose our enemies instead. Meaning they have to reflect upon themselves first. You'd hardly know of his accomplishments by reading opposition tales. Which continue indulging its perverse obsession with rigging theories,.

Also conspicuous were the dogs that didn't bark. These are the predictions of imminent calamity certain to accompany an ED presidency that have, happily, failed to materialize. For one, war did not break out, despite this being one of the ED'S detractors' favourite predictions. Nor did the president sell the country down the river to FOREIGNERS AND WHITE FARMERS; he didn't ignore court orders, didn't shut down the free press, and didn't fire G40 ministers and many more.

After nine months of peace and prosperity, more people are likely to believe that such outlandish predictions tell us less about the president and more about the temperament of his critics. They tell us more about Chamisa and the opposition.

ED must appoint an all-star Cabinet that has been quietly and dutifully implementing the president's agenda even as their boss runs interference for them, taking the slings and arrows of a hostile media.

There's more. Under ED, construction has begun on the Beitbridge Harare high way. The road will see thousands of Lorries and goods hitting Zimbabwe safely and fast.

Add to that low unemployment, rising wages, a booming stock market and a tax cut that will put more money in middle-class pockets starting now and you have the makings of a very successful presidency.
The police willingness to enforce the law and end incentives to corruption will change behaviour of our business.

Likewise, ED has overseen a change in national security policy from the tyranic police force of his recent predecessors to the interests based in realism that he calls Zimbabweans.

There is much yet to be done. There are cash crisis issues that the president has promised to end, and the infrastructure he has promised to rebuild. So to ED'S critics I say, go ahead, keep talking. While you're doing that, ED will be governing.

vazet2000@yahoo.co.uk