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President Mugabe

President Mugabe delivered the much awaited State of the Nation Address yesterday and if there is one thing that was clear from his speech, it is that Zimbabwe can only rise in 2017.There are many reasons to believe so, both from President Mugabe’s address from the August Parliament, and other factors.

It will be instructive to note that President Mugabe gave his address at a time Zimbabwe has just embraced the introduction of bond notes in the economy which are designed to ease the liquidity crisis that has characterised much of this year.

As the year was closing, the situation of shortage of currency for the general transacting public and corporates was slowly getting out of hand while the tenability of using the US dollar was becoming self evident, hence the idea of bond notes.

Still fresh off the mint, the bond notes have not yet completely turned around the situation, these few days that they have been in operation, and with a limited quota injected.

However, the bond notes have scored a major coup; confidence.

Confidence is what lacked in the Zimbabwe dollar era, leading to the trivialisation of the local currency besides falling to other inflation inducing pressures.

Now, and this is a fact, Zimbabwe has the strongest currency in Africa and its people have full confidence in it.

That is a stabilising fact and a single most important macro-economic fact.

We believe Zimbabwe can rise again.

And President Mugabe talked about economic fundamentals that make for sound economic performance.

Agriculture is poised to be stronger in 2017 while tourism is one of our best prospects on the back of its continued growth and development. In the first half of 2016 we saw 902 435 tourist arrivals, and the country expects to receive 2,5 million tourists by year end setting the stage for a vast improvement.

Improved power and energy supplies give hope for good economic performance next year.

President Mugabe said in line with Zim-Asset, Government was introducing important requirements across all the sectors of the economy with the major objective being to increase local capacity, create a skilled workforce and become a competitive supplier base.

The issue of a skilled worker base finds consonance with the new curriculum designed by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education which in turn is being buttressed by the Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) programme which has seen 5 000 students enrol to study A-Level mathematics and any two science subjects aimed at developing STEM skills to help industrialisation and modernisation.

In light of these things, and many other factors, it is safe to conclude that the country has reasonable prospects for 2017.

Following the State of the Nation Address, the nation must go into the festive season with the full realisation that there must be more work to be done.

The onus is on everyone to make sure that the country can work again.

The challenges that have been faced this year are an equal reminder that they can be confronted and surmounted together.

We are positive that everyone will play their part.