Influential in setting up the Zimbabwe Diaspora Civil Society Forum in 2000, Zunga now chairs the Zimbabwe Diaspora Development Chamber and is Treasurer of its sister organisation, the Global Zimbabwe Forum – both spearheading the unification of Diaspora efforts in developing Zimbabwe.
Our aim is to ensure that when Zimbabweans finally go back home, they do not become paupers, but set up companies that will drive the country forward. So we are empowering them to shake off their victim mentality and see their displacements as a way of putting them at strategic positions for the betterment of their country.
Most Zimbabweans in the Diaspora are living in democracies and we want them to take advantage of that by setting up developmental projects that will give them the financial muscle to start companies back home. The GZF, whose patron is acclaimed Zimbabwean academic and writer, Professor Kenneth Mufuka, is registered in Switzerland and came out of a global conference held in Johannesburg in 2007.
The organisation has already approached the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its fundraising campaigns, where it has been told to bring a recommendation letter from the Zimbabwean government to receive funds.
We have written to the Zimbabwean government, requesting a Diaspora programme of action, but it seems they are not interested at all, said Zunga.
The organisation has not given up hope, and recently set up a banking institution, Imbongi Capital, affiliated to South Africas ABSA bank, which seeks to simplify Diaspora remittances to Zimbabwe. The bank will open accounts for Diasporans, which they will use to send money home in a very swift, safe, cheap and convenient way. We are in the process of refining some software programmes with the system, but it is now as good as running and we expect to have more than 500 000 people signed up with it once it kicks off.
Once the GZF kicks into full swing, it will handle more money than the Zimbabwean government is doing because it has all the Zimbabwean professionals, the big brains in the Diaspora, signed up as members. We are involved with the South African government, which has given us the green light to operate and they listen to us better than our own government. They understand that we are preparing our people to go back and develop their country and stop them from being an immigrant population forever.
Post published in: News