The Sunday News
Harare Bureau THE mega deals clinched during President Mugabe’s recent State visit to China are set to ignite an economic revolution that will create thousands of jobs within the next three years, Presidential spokesperson Cde George Charamba has said. Under several agreements signed during the visit, the Asian giant pledged to support Zimbabwe’s key economic areas among them energy, roads, railways, telecommunications, agriculture and tourism. The overarching assistance homes in on wealth-creation underpinned by infrastructure and agriculture development, both major elements central to the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio Economic Transformation (Zim Asset). A critical component of the economic blueprint sets a target of two million jobs by 2018.
On Thursday, President Mugabe commissioned the Kariba South Power Extension Project which is expected to generate 300 megawatts by 2017. The project — jointly funded by the Chinese and the Zimbabwe Power Company — will progressively employ over 700 people. The country’s unemployment rate is 11 percent, and the majority of the employed is in the small- and medium-scale enterprises sector, according to the latest National Population Census Report. Cde Charamba said the deals heralded the latest economic action model which focuses on triggering economic activity as opposed to depending on financial aid.
He said Government would be able to enumerate the number of jobs created via the Chinese deals within the next three years. He was optimistic, though, that the initiatives would help Government meet its two million-job target. “If you consider the contract of an enabler, the structure is not around money. It is around triggers that create money. Anyone reading China on the perspective of dollars, in terms of economic revolution, is on the wrong track. “Anyone expecting money is working on the groove of an aid-led mentality.
But anyone who is looking at capacitating the economy is on the right side of history. This is a new paradigm shift because we are not looking at receiving small monies with high interests, but we are right at the heart of the new model of creating wealth and not aid.” Cde Charamba — who is also Secretary for Information, Media and Broadcasting Services — encouraged young and unemployed Zimbabweans to consider job opportunities the new economic thrust is creating. “Most of these projects are labour-intensive; the level of employment will be massive. Government has set a target of 2,2 million new jobs through Zim Asset.
“These projects will have a major dent on these 2,2 million jobs. Tell those silly MDC boys who are on the streets of Harare that jobs are there! Let them take pick and shovel, and work in those infrastructure projects and we develop our country.”
He went on: “We cannot give figures at the moment. But maybe after three or so years, we can give figures of how many people have benefited, how many people have been employed. It is going to be a growth of spurts in every sector of the economy.
“From a common man’s point of view, imagine the Beitbridge-Chirundu Highway Dualisation Project, the Kariba South Expansion . . . These are massive projects.”
In the National Assembly last week, Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa said the deals centred on bankable projects.
“What we have been able to achieve was serious engagement with the Chinese authorities. We got a commitment from the highest authority to fund bankable and viable projects.
“China does not give budgetary support to any country. It is interested in giving infrastructural support. We came back with commitment that they are prepared to fund bankable projects.”
