By Paul Nyathi|After years of denial, President Emmerson Mnangagwa has committed that his Zanu PF government will implement the devolution of power principle as in The Constitution.
Speaking at a hugely attended Zanu PF rally in Gwanda on Friday, Mnangagwa said that if he wins the landmark July 30 elections he will implement Section 14 of the Constitution which has been widely ignored in the last five years by the party he leads.
Mnangagwa acknowledged that the current government was ably implementing the decentralisation of government functions which does not constitute the devolution of power principle.
“We know that for example, the Ministry of Education runs a full decentralised system with offices in the regions, provinces and even down to the districts and wards but that is not enough,” said Mnangagwa.
“There is another decentralisation of power that has not been done called devolution which is separate from decentralisation. Devolution would require the surrendering of some amount of power to the provinces under the provincial councils,” he said.
“In terms of our constitution this will give provinces authority to manage their resources and then the provincial ministers’ role will change from chanting party slogans to an economic role. They must look at the resources of their provinces and find best ways of exploiting these resources to benefit their respective provinces.”
Mnangagwa’s commitment to the devolution of power is a completely new definition from his predecessor former President Robert Mugabe who always insisted that the current decentralisation of governemnt roles was complete devolution of power.
The commitment by Mnangagwa comes as a direct challenge to opposition parties that have been pushing the devolution of power principle as their manifesto.
Mnangagwa said after the elections each province will compete in terms of economic delivery.
“When we finish the July 30 elections, the Second Republic will come into place. Under the Second Republic, each province will have its own economic planning programming from ward, to district to provinces, we initiate the provincial council as provided for by the constitution, run province by province in a devolved power,” said Mnangagwa.
“There is no province without resources, each province has particular resources. Under the second republic coming in August, if you don’t want to be rich don’t walk close to us,” he said.
Mnangagwa echoed calls by some opposition parties that Matabeleland South must reap from the income generated by Southern Africa’s busiest inland port of entry, Beitbridge Border Post. He said that the Border Post will under go a major facelift before elections.
“Cabinet passed a resolution that Beitbridge Border Post should be modernised so we awarded a company a tender to modernise it. We hope that by Thursday next week work will start at the border,” he said.