PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe yesterday said he was horrified by the state of roads across the country.
NDUDUZO TSHUMA
He also said a Cabinet committee has been set up to look at the country’s water after experts condemned water in all cities as unsafe.
Officially opening the 55th edition of the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) in Bulawayo, Mugabe said the state of the country’s roads was appalling.
“I was looking at the road from the airport to here. It was as if it was made in 1924 when I was born. If you put a bit of cement on it to level it, decorate it and put a bit of shoulders to the roads as others do,” he said.
“Look at us wearing these suits and old men like myself, if that road is newer than when I was born in 1924, it must show that it is modern. The councils will say they do not have money, but where does the money go? We pay rates, the Ministry of Local Government must be jerked up to jerk up the councils.”
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Mugabe said government should also look at dualising roads and not only surfacing them, adding that many lives were being lost on the country’s roads during public holidays.
Mugabe also said there was need to protect water bodies after the country received lots of rains. “We have a problem with sewage, there is sewage flowing all over. Are we drinking clean water? Doctors said we do not have clean water in all cities,” Mugabe said.
“We have set up a committee in Cabinet immediately to clean the water. God has given us good rains and rivers are full, but we do not want that water soiled.”
Mugabe said the ZITF was also an occasion for Matabeleland to have its own cattle showcase as the breeders could not transport all their cattle to the Harare Agricultural Show.
“I am sorry to say that we come at a time when so many cattle were decimated by the drought of the previous year. With the good rains we had this year, we will recover,” Mugabe said.
Mugabe said there was need to improve the country’s infrastructure, particularly roads.
He bemoaned the sanctions slapped on Zimbabwe, blaming the United States for imposing the measures in reaction to the country’s land reform programme.
He said the US needed to understand that God gave people power over their resources and failure to do so was in contempt of the Lord.
Mugabe reiterated his Independence Day speech that the indigenisation drive had been misrepresented and misinterpreted.
“There is no expropriation or nationalisation of shares held by non-indigenous persons in companies as some of our detractors would want the world to believe,” Mugabe said.
He said any equity that an indigenous person takes up would be disposed at fair value.
“In fact, there is no imposition of indigenous partners on foreign investors, instead investors are free to identify partners of their choice.
“With this clarification, let me take this opportunity to invite potential investors to come and do business in Zimbabwe in which there is huge potential for joint venture partnerships between investors, manufacturers, industrialists and the public sector.”