President Mnangagwa outlines five-year development agenda

Harare (New Ziana) – The government’s focus in the next five years will be lifting the country into the targeted upper middle economy status by 2030, in which the urban-rural development gap will be bridged considerably, President Emmerson Mnangagwa said on Thursday.

Addressing newly appointed Ministers and their deputies, permanent secretaries and other top government officials, he said development should be evenly spread across the country, with special focus on rural
areas previously neglected, in what President Mnangagwa called “Whole of
Economy and Society Approach to Development.”

“Our people deserve quality, affordable and accessible services. Under
our watch, as members of the Executive more of our people must be taken
out of poverty into prosperity, especially the vulnerable, women and
youth,” he said.

“To achieve this, servant leadership, continuous learning and the responsive implementation of policies and projects remain integral.
Further, we must work with a great sense of urgency, unity of purpose and seamless synergies. Unity among Ministers, Deputy Ministers, Permanent Secretaries and senior officials is critical. You have to
complement each other,” he said.

President Mnangagwa, who won a fresh five year mandate in last month’s
general elections, was setting out his vision and policies for the new term in office.

He said this will be underpinned by well thought out, and planned socio-economic development focused on mordenisation and
industrialisation.

He said the elections had come and gone, and the nation should now unite and focus on developing the country to be able to achieve the 2030 vision.

President Mnangagwa said a good foundation for development had been laid in the past five years, which should now be seized upon to fast-track achievement of the national vision.

He said sanctions imposed on the country by the West should not be allowed to hinder its development, rather it should spur it through national vision and ambition.

“Although we are under the albatross of the heinous illegal sanctions, this must never limit us. We must have a mentality that this is normal and achieve even greater success. The innovation and ingenuity that has seen us realise unprecedented results, across all sectors, should be scaled up,” he said.

“This country belongs to the people and not to us. In whatever we do, let us respect the people, especially elder people, because their perception of Government is based on who they come into contact with.
Hence, if you are arrogant, they will think that we are all arrogant,personally, I am not arrogant. You must be humble and simple. Never abuse the people,” President Mnangagwa added.

He told the top government officials they will be measured by the agility and innovativeness in accelerating the country’s economic growth, modernisation, industrialisation and global competiveness.

“It is not business as usual. Hard, honest work should be engrained at every level of our Government. We must collectively implement bold policies to achieve impactful results. It is essential that the public sector now shifts from reporting on activities and tasks, to reporting on results, outputs and outcomes,” he said.

He said the implementation of the Digital Agenda must be accelerated so that public services are offered online for the convenience of the people.

Consolidating food security and sovereignty through higher agricultural
production and productivity, as well as mechanisation and modernisation
of the sector will remain a priority, President Mnangagwa said, adding
that improving social services such as education, and health will also
be government priority..

“The framework being used for implementation of the NDS 1 must be
strengthened for the monitoring and evaluation of the achievement of
Vision 2030 targets. To enhance inclusive participation of all the stakeholders in the economy, Ministers and Permanent Secretaries, must be agile and provide the requisite leadership,” he said.

“Participation in NDS1 Thematic and Technical Working Groups must be
taken seriously and meetings, timeously convened. Dereliction of duty in
this regard, will not be condoned,” he said.

President Mnangagwa said government development blueprints, programmes
and projects must answer to the needs of households, villages, wards, districts and provinces where provincial development plans must, thus,speak to the devolved systems.

New Ziana