He made the remarks at State House today during the swearing in of Ministers who were nominated to he cabinet.
Mugabe announced a 26 member cabinet yesterday trimming down the number from 33.
He said that he could have trimmed down the number further down but said this was not possible as he had to make sure that all the provinces had representation in the new cabinet.
Mugabe said that excluding other provinces could have come up with negative effects for the party as it could have resulted in disgruntlement from members and supporters.
“We took into account the issue of the provinces. They had to be represented in cabinet otherwise we would not be back into power tomorrow. Every province must be represented,” he said.
Mugabe’s announcement of the cabinet came a week after the swearing in of Members of Parliament.
“People have been for all these days saying where is cabinet. You do not set up a cabinet until other steps and interventions have been gone through,” said Mugabe.
He admitted that his government had the daunting task of formulating and executing policies that would save the country’s economy from collapse.
“We will need to revive some of the institutions and establishments that the previous government left to go into oblivion or neglected. We will look at various sectors. For example, in agriculture we will look at what needs to be done, what assistance needs to be given,” said Mugabe.
He said that financial institutions had to reduce interest rates for loans given to farmers as well as ensuring that the former are able to get long term loans.
Mugabe admitted that the country’s agricultural sector has not been performing well but said the situation was worse for the industrial sector.
He said Bulawayo had been badly affected by the poor performance of the industrial sector.
“Bulawayo is like a dying city now. We must bring back that industrial capacity it used to have and bring back that employment capacity it used to have. We are going to do our best. We would look at the people first. The people are unemployed and we have got to try and correct that,” said Mugabe.
He said there was need to fight corruption in the country in order for the economy to move forward but admitted that it is “not easy to detect”.
He said that was need for impeccable evidence in order to bring perpetrators to book. “It’s not that easy to detect. Those who know that payments have been made should say so. They must be able to come out and tell us. We cannot victimise people because they have an appearance of a person prospering. We would want proof,” aid Mugabe.
Post published in: News