Mnangagwa Says Stop Being ‘Cry Babies’ About Sanctions

Emmerson Mnangagwa

For years Zanu PF under Mnangagwa’s former boss Robert Mugabe blamed all the county’s ills even self created ones on sanctions. The state had a very narrow approach to dealing with the national crisis, opting to hide behind the sanctions mantra even as corruption and bad governance flourished.

The state media reports that Mnangagwa said Zimbabweans should stop complaining about the impact of Western sanctions on the country and instead focus on creatively leveraging on available human and natural resources to steer growth and development.

The President said this in his address to the country’s 286 traditional chiefs in Gweru yesterday.

Western nations imposed economic and other sanctions on Zimbabwe at the turn of the millennium after Harare embarked on the Fast-Track Land Reform Programme that resulted in tens of thousands of indigenes being allocated farms previously held by around 6 000 white farmers.

Yesterday, President Mnangagwa said the embargo had negatively impacted on development, but it was time the nation stopped whining about this reality and instead turned its attentions to factors that it had control over.

“Takaita masanctions edu atidzorera shure, asi ikozvino hatichafaniri kuramba tichichema namasanctions. Nezvatinazvo, tikabatana tinosimuka. Nyika yedu inosimuka. Matoona kuti tava nesolution in the area of agriculture and the area of food security. Tava nesolution nemasolutions in manufacturing.”

While still Vice-President, President Mnangagwa – as a developmental intervention – spearheaded formulation and implementation of the Command Agriculture Programme that has seen output of the staple maize improve.

That approach is now being applied to diverse other sectors and subsectors as a homegrown solution to growth and development challenges.

Speaking to the chiefs in Gweru yesterday, President Mnangagwa said: “We must also have a solution in the area of beneficiation and value addition. We must have solutions in the area of the types of skills that must be taught in our institutions.