The Sunday News
Vincent Gono, News Editor
PREPARATIONS for this year’s Independence Day celebrations are going on well and there is an overwhelming excitement from the communities around Mt Darwin in Mashonaland Central Province, itself a bastion of the liberation struggle, a Cabinet Minister has said.
Local Government and Public Works Minister Cde July Moyo told Sunday News in a recent interview that their technical teams have been on the ground with reports that there was a lot of positive energy from within the community of Mt Darwin where the celebrations will be held.
“Preparations have been smooth sailing according to our technical teams that are on the ground. They have visited Mt Darwin and have reported that there is excitement. We are therefore hoping to have a memorable event in Mashonaland Central’s Mt Darwin District taking note of the President’s pronouncement that it should not just be a change of geography but should provide insights into what should be done in the area of development in the host district,” he said.
The decentralisation of the Independence Day celebrations outside the capital was announced by President Mnangagwa last year where he said no city should have a monopoly of hosting national events and Bulawayo was the first to host the Independence Day celebrations after his instructive pronouncement.
He said days that were commemorative of the country’s historical past should set the stage for the country’s leadership to concentrate its focus on specific and peculiar needs of each region when it hosts the national event and set the pace for development in line with the devolution agenda.
He said the movement of the celebrations from the capital to areas other than Harare were not supposed to be read simply as a change of geography but as a loud statement of inclusivity and collective ownership of the day cutting across all differences.
“This is much more than a mere change of venue and geography. It is a profound statement on collective ownership of the day. We all share it as Zimbabweans, regardless of village, town, city, district or province. Indeed, that day unites us all as one people, whatever our colour, creed, tribe, sub-culture, language, age or gender. For that reason, no one place or city monopolises its commemoration,” said President Mnangagwa in one of his weekly articles that set the tone for the decentralisation of the celebrations.
He says the day is supposed to present an opportunity for the country’s leadership to take stock of how each of the ten regions has fared, or is faring, in carving a distinct economy based on its unique factor endowments.
