Bulawayo Bureau ACTING President John Nkomo says people calling for the devolution of power in governance were ill-informed and dismissed claims that Matabeleland provinces were underdeveloped. In an interview yesterday, Dr Nkomo said he supports decentralisation because devolution was divisive.
He said proponents of devolution did not know the implications it will have in the country.
"When it comes to devolution of power, I don't know what some people think really but some of these things come from idle minds. They never look at the implications of what they say.
"What is devolution? No one can give you an answer. What we must always remember as a nation is that even our ancestors set up a system of nation-building which entailed bringing together different people and the message is ‘wakha isizwe ngabantu'(you build a nation from people) not by dividing them. Even King of the Ndebele nation Lobengula did the same. There can only be one state here. What I think would be ideal is decentralisation," he said.
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Dr Nkomo said President Mugabe introduced decentralisation soon after independence through rural district councils.
More should be done to spread it to other key Government departments so that essential services are accesible from all corners of the country.
"With decentralisation, people do not have to go far to Harare each time to get things like birth certificates and other simple things which are essential.
"Government departments and various administrative structures should be all over the country so that people access them and feel that they are part of governance."
He blasted the Mthwakazi Liberation Front which he said was dividing the country through calls for cessation.
"Now you have the likes of Mthwakazi. It's craziness and who is not Mthwakazi?
"There have been so many intermarriages in the country since time immemorial and when you say Mthwakazi is for Matabeleland, what do you do with the Kalanga, Tonga, Nambia, Venda, Suthu and Bushman who are found in Matabeleland. This is a dangerous game they are playing but when we fought the liberation war, we fought to liberate Zimbabwe and not pieces, not components. I would like to counsel people against this idea."
The Acting President said South Africa had promised to provide funding for struggling companies in Bulawayo.
"We are in the first stage of trying to resuscitate industries in Matabeleland or Bulawayo as you said. The President wants Bulawayo to come back to life and we have set up a Cabinet taskforce led by Minister Ncube
(Welshman) to do a study of what is the root cause of the problem and which companies were affected and how they can be assisted.
"The President asked the South African President if he could assist Bulawayo firms when he was in South Africa for the Sadc summit in Johannesburg recently and President Zuma (Jacob) said they would look into the issue," he said.
Dr Nkomo said the water project to draw water from the Zambezi River and the building of the Gwayi-Shangani Dam was affected by the illegal sanctions imposed on the country by Western countries.
He said an agreement had already been reached with two European countries to fund the project, but when sanctions were effected by the European Union, they decided to stop the funding.
He said all stakeholders in the region interested in the project had to work together to find a solution, adding that Government was committed to seeing water flowing in the region.
"The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe also funded part of the project to build Gwayi-Shangani Dam and before that, two companies had said they would fund the project and we actually travelled to the United States at the headquarters of those companies to seal the deal, but when sanctions came, they stopped everything.
"This is a Government-approved project and not Government-funded so other stakeholders must also look for resources so that the project becomes a success. The Government was involved right from the word go when the late Vice President Joshua Nkomo was still alive.
"The way forward now is to get the construction of the dam back to life and all stakeholders must get involved and stop the business of saying Matabeleland is marginalised," he said.
Source: Herald
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