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V P Mnangagwa

George Maponga Masvingo Bureau
Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa has urged the Great Zimbabwe University to use the recently completed Tokwe-Mukosi Dam in southern Masvingo in intensifying research towards the growing and resultant export of high value crops as Zimbabwe gears towards sustainable food security.

Speaking during a fundraising dinner last week, where the GZU raised an estimated US$200 000 in cash and pledges towards mobilising funds to start construction work at the institution’s permanent site near Great Zimbabwe World Heritage Site, VP Mnangagwa urged the corporate world and other donors to support infrastructural development at the fast growing institution.

He said GZU was important because of its responsibility to develop culture and heritage studies that help identify Zimbabwe as a nation.

The Vice President also donated US$7 000 to the college to build a Convention Hall as the first building at its permanent site.

“Today’s gathering has been convened for a noble cause, as we in Government have been patiently waiting for the university to make its first visible steps towards relocating to its natural home, a home given to it by His Excellency, the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, Cde Robert Gabriel Mugabe, way back in 2007.

“This fundraising initiative could therefore not have come at a better time than now. I must say I am impressed by this gesture and would like to register Government’s full support for the project. What is truly breathtaking is its resourcefulness, innovativeness and boldness that has gone to its inception,” he said.

VP Mnangagwa added: “Whereas the project would have ordinarily been a PSIP project, GZU management have realised that Government’s purse is overwhelmed with equally compelling obligations. The university’s management have therefore chosen to ‘think outside the box’ and make the university’s construction a reality.”

The Vice President said it was heartening to note that other local universities were taking a leaf from GZU on how to develop an institution of higher learning using local resources.

He said the GZU has great potential to leverage on indigenous knowledge systems and was supposed to collaborate with other local research institutions to enhance food and nutrition security in Zimbabwe.

GZU Vice Chancellor Professor Rungano Zvobgo also paid tribute to the corporate world in Masvingo and beyond for the rapid transformation of the institution.

The GZU boasts seven different schools under its multi-campus system which have been very successful as evidenced by a sharp spike in enrolment within a few years.

GZU was established at the behest of President Mugabe who envisioned the creation of a State-owned university built near the Great Zimbabwe Monuments that would be dedicated to teaching culture and heritage studies.

The university was initially named Masvingo State University before becoming GZU in 2007.

Funding challenges have been holding back construction at the permanent site which was identified about eight years ago.

Meanwhile, GZU students attend lectures at campuses dotted around Masvingo City and the mining town of Mashava.