By Savious Madanhire
Among the 8,000 projects initiated by the government, Kwekwe is one of the cities to benefit from significant investments in education, agriculture and tourism which are expected to drive economic growth and transformation in the Midlands Province.
Recently, the Minister of Information, Publicity, and Broadcasting Services, Dr. Jenfan Muswere, was the guest of honor during a media tour in the Midlands province hosted by the Minister of State for Provincial Affairs and Devolution, Honourable Owen Ncube.
The tour showcased several key projects in Kwekwe, including the Midlands State University’s Kwekwe Law Campus, the Grain Marketing Board’s (GMB) Kwekwe depot, and a state-of-the-art hotel in Redcliff.
The Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa Law School, currently under construction features a two-floor building with a library and a Moot court and is expected to be completed by August 2025.
Once finished, It is expected to be one of the leading law schools in Africa in terms of infrastructure, hence it will house three faculties including law as the main faculty, built environment as the second faculty and agriculture thereby enhancing access to higher education in the region while promoting economic development and growth.
In his speech, Minister of State for Provincial Affairs and Devolution, Honourable Owen Ncube, explained, “The law school is named after President Mnangagwa in recognition of his professional and academics as a legal practitioner which include providing legal counsel in upholding the party Zanu PF constitution during the crafting the constitution of Zimbabwe.
The reforms he introduced under his tenure as the minister of justice, legal and parliamentary affairs among them the establishment of open prisons, decentralization of courts to sub-national levels and advocating for the abolition of the death penalty himself having survived the death penalty during the liberation struggle on a technicality.
The Emmerson Dambudzo Law School is just a tip of several other programs and projects rolled out in the Midlands province and beyond guided by the mantra leaving no one and no place behind.”
The project is, His Excellency the President’s idea in Kwekwe, and is now at 65 percent completion rate and in the process of working on the roof.
The project has four sections, with sections, one and four ready for roofing while two and three are also towards the roofing stage hence the Masvingo Polytechnic is on-site working on the roofing thrushes.
However, the project created employment for 300 workers on site thus highlighting its involvement in employment creation in Kwekwe District.
The law program enrolls 120 students per year as it is regulated and the Bachelor of Laws LOB program has a student population of 600 for all levels which is one to five.
The master’s program enrolls 30 students per year and in the future, the university will be able to offer a variety of law short course programs.
Next, the media tour visited the GMB’s Kwekwe depot, where seven massive silos are being constructed to store grain, beans, wheat, and cereals.
Engineer Andrew Mupariwa, Provincial Mechanisation Engineer in the Ministry of Agriculture, highlighted that the project will significantly enhance the country’s grain storage capacity, promoting food security and supporting the growth of the agricultural sector.
“As Midlands province, we had a challenge of bulk storage most of our farmers were transporting their grain to as far as Chegutu at a cost of around $600 per 30 metric tonne truck, this has come as a welcome move because now we can accommodate bulk storage here at Kwekwe depot, our silos each 8 000 metric tonnes and we have a total of 7 silos totaling 56 000 metric tonnes that means we can accommodate as much grain as possible, we can accommodate a variety of grain such as maize, wheat, sorghum and soya beans.
We are going to manage post-harvest losses as most of our farmers, after harvest, bagged their grain. Hence, when the grain is delivered to GMB, they are stacked in the open, thus reacting to the sun, leading to some of them breaking, leading to losses.”
“The whole project is now at 85 % with 4 complete silos and 2 silos halfway hence starting setting out on the 7th silos we hope that by the end of April, may all the silos will be complete left with touch-ups on the electricals. We hope that this season we will be able to start collecting grain from our farmers into the new silos.”
Meanwhile, the Gokwe site was handed over to the contractor in December but due to the sandy soils, they had to revise the drawings to suit the soils there for a stable infrastructure.
However, the Minister of Information, Publicity, and Broadcasting Services, Dr. Jenfan Muswere, emphasized that the government has made significant progress in driving economic growth and development, particularly in the agricultural sector as Zimbabwe has moved from being a net importer of grain to achieving food security sufficiency.
“The Midlands province media tour has got chronicles of tangible projects which include new smelting companies, along the great dyke and outside the great dyke, new hotels and tourism facilities but in terms of the agricultural side for a very long time or for so many years after the western countries imposed illegal sanctions the agricultural ecosystem was affected but post-2017 we initially started having a committee of the importation of grain but after the President, Mnangagwa assumed office we moved from an importing country in terms of cereals and many other types of foods to food security sufficiency with now having a population of 10 600 dams across the country part of the resilience building mechanism to support agriculture have been put in place.”
“Nutrition security has been archived in several ways but which we seek to cement to create a sustainable ecosystem that is going to ensure that in case of drought, we are in a position to feed our nation, but all these measures that his excellence has put in place are to ensure that we are going to propel our agricultural sector for what defines the security of a nation in terms of parameters is not only in terms of artillery but also in terms of the capacity to grow our food and the capacity to feed our people and this in terms of territorial integrity and national security has been archived because of the resilience building mechanism.”
Further, the government is also investing in tourism development, as evident in the $10 million hotel owned by Chinese investors in Redcliff. The 5-star hotel boasts state-of-the-art facilities and is expected to become a major tourist attraction, promoting economic growth and development in the Province.
The Zhong Jin International Hotel features facilities to host business meetings, a supermarket, a casino, a restaurant and accommodation for visitors. The hotel has also created employment for youths in Kwekwe and Redcliff.
These projects demonstrate the government’s commitment to creating an upper-middle-class economy by 2030. Under President Mnangagwa’s leadership, the government is implementing various initiatives to drive economic growth, promote development, and improve the lives of citizens in the Midlands Province.
