Zanu-PF indaba must focus on economy

The Zanu-PF 15th National People's Conference began in earnest yesterday, with the revolutionary party holding its Politburo meeting in the capital while the Central Committee will meet tomorrow.

The National People's Conference is the annual ritual of the ruling party where — outside the elective congress which is held every five years — the party decides on the course the country should take in political, social and economic facets.

Zanu-PF is the ruling party and its programmes and actions inform and indeed instruct, Government. This is why this indaba and the party's congress are of paramount importance to the nation.

Precisely, the indaba taking place in Victoria Falls this week is arguably the most important meeting of the year.

The conference is being held under the theme, "Consolidating People's Power through Zim-Asset", which is following on last year's theme, "Accelerated implementation of Zim-Asset".

We commend the ruling party for sticking to the spirit and letter of Zim-Asset which is the Government's economic blueprint until 2018. This conference will reflect on the past year and take stock of its achievements and challenges and set the tone for next year. On the question of whether the country has seen accelerated implementation of Zim-Asset we note that the country, led by Zanu-PF, has fared well.

Chinese President Xi Jingping was in the country just recently and he oversaw the inking of mega deals between his country and Zimbabwe. The deals are worth $4 billion which is a huge sum that will oil the progress of Zim-Asset.

There are more ventures that will come from China, the world's second largest economy and the coming of the Chinese leader this year has done more than anything else, towards opening opportunities for the implementation of Zim Asset.

It is not to be forgotten too that this year also saw the coming of Africa's richest man, Aliko Dangote, to our shores, which underscores the fact that Zimbabwe is safe for investment.

It is not a secret that this environment is safe, thanks to the peace and stability that this country enjoys under the stewardship of Zanu-PF.

Another significant development has been efforts by the authorities to settle the country's debts which not only removes an albatross around the country's neck, but also makes Zimbabwe a good destination for new money because of renewed credit-worthiness behaviour. The country has fared well in the continuation of other projects such as transport infrastructure while the social services sector, including health and education, has remained stable.

In light of the drought and hunger that has set in, the Zanu-PF Government has assured the nation that no one will die of hunger and true to that word, has imported maize from neighbouring countries.

Mechanisms have also been put in place to ensure the success of this agricultural season as inputs are available and critically, since the season is coming under a pall of drought, efforts have been directed towards cloud seeding to avert poor rains catastrophe. But we also urge the ruling party to redouble its efforts in serving the people as we are confident that it is within its power to do more, to be more proactive and more creative.

We know it is not lost on the party that this year thousands of people lost their jobs in an unprecedented wave of expulsions triggered by a legal loophole which was repaired, albeit after many casualties and dealing a huge blow to the ruling party's promise to provide two million jobs.

To undo this damage, the ruling party has to deliberate on ways to stimulate productivity in the country's economy to provide the necessary fillip to the sacked workers and grow the economy as well.

The challenges that the party and country face are still there — very much so.

For reference's sake, last year's Congress noted that, the country faced challenges relating to "illegal sanctions, constrained fiscal space, depressed economic performance, disproportionately high wage bill, the continuing liquidity challenges, poor state of public infrastructure, constrained investment and revenue inflows, the haemorrhaging of State Enterprises, the scourge of rampant corruption and gross violations of good corporate governance in both private and public sector enterprises".

These problems have not gone away and how they will be tackled remains a beckoning challenge to the party. This is why all hopes and prayers will be with the party because, above all, the resolution of these challenges, barring the sanctions issue perhaps which we have little control over, will bring food to people's tables.

In fact, people will feel adequately empowered, when, outside the opportunities accorded to them by Government, issues that they lose sleep over are addressed by the party they gave the majority of their votes.