Harare, (New Ziana) -The Southern African Development Community (SADC) secretariat has expressed satisfaction with the progress that Zimbabwe has made in preparing for the Heads of State and Government summit slated for August in the country.
Speaking to journalists soon after paying a courtesy call to President Emmerson Mnangagwa at State House on Wednesday, SADC executive secretary Elias Magosi said the country had made good progress in terms of preparations.
“I came here on a courtesy call on the President to talk about a few things, the main one being the preparations for SADC summit that will be held here in Harare in August. You will be aware that President Mnangagwa will be assuming the chairmanship of our region, of SADC,” he said.
“There are preparatory works that are being done leading up to the summit itself and the committee that is led by the Vice President Chiwenga is working around the clock with the Ministers and senior officials to make sure that the summit is a success,” said Magosi, adding that the committee was also working closely with the SADC secretariat.
He said his other discussion with President Mnangagwa centred on the Museum of African Liberation in Harare where there will be a side event during the summit, when President Mnangagwa will present it to other SADC leaders.
President Mnangagwa will also present to the leaders, the SADC liberation square where they could also put their own history as member states, said Magosi.
“So this is indeed a good realisation that we have a history for us to be liberated as member states, as a region, and therefore this is a historical development for us,” he said.
Magosi said the third issue that they discussed was how they could enhance the way that SADC functions, how they could improve themselves as member states, as well as sharing projects that were meaningful and changing the lives of the people.
“So, he shared with us some of the projects that they are doing, that were consistent with our industrialization, also to make sure that we improve our energy mix and there is a project that they are doing of waste to energy that he will be sharing with other Heads of States as well,” said Magosi.
He said they had also agreed to make sure that when SADC Heads of States were in Zimbabwe, there was need to make them very visible to the ordinary people, as most are used to seeing them on television only, hence the importance for them to appreciate that they were also humans.
Turning to the issue of the El-Nino-induced drought sweeping across the entire region and the recently launched appeal for food aid by the bloc during the recent extra-ordinary summit, Magosi said they were now going to engage their partners and those with surplus within the region, for assistance so that they help those in need.
“We also said if you look at the appeal itself, that perhaps it is about time as a region we should also plan better. We now know that there is something called climate change, we now know that in times of these, every year around this time we are going to have heavy rains, we are going to have drought,” he said.
New Ziana