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Dr Amai Mugabe

Sydney Kawadza Senior Reporter
The Zanu-PF Women’s League has embarked on a variety of business ventures to boost its coffers, with the wing raising over $165 000 through selling party regalia. Addressing the wing’s National Assembly meeting at the party headquarters in Harare on Thursday, Zanu-PF Secretary for Women’s Affairs Amai Grace Mugabe said they needed more resources for predictable revenue inflows to wean themselves from the main wing for financial support.

She appealed to Members of Parliament to support the Women’s League by buying the regalia in their constituencies and win the hearts and mind of the electorate ahead of the 2018 elections.

The Women’s League has supported some of its activities using its own resources, such as the Top 10 management committee meetings, Provincial Women’s League chair-ladies’ meetings, Provincial Women League Induction Workshops, Zimbabwe International Trade Fair and the national secretary of administration provincial tours of the league’s farms.

“The league provided budgetary support for the programmes to the tune of US$46 867,00,” said Amai Mugabe.

“Self-reliance rather than a culture of dependence is what we should inculcate among the Women’s League members.”

Amai Mugabe said the league’s programmes were meant to garner support for the party, while generating revenue and develop entrepreneurial skills among its members.

Some of the projects include Wilmar Industrial High School in Goromonzi, farms in various provinces, a 50-hectare sugarcane farm in Hippo Valley and the resuscitation of the 15 000-hectare Bulawayo Kraal Irrigation Scheme in Binga.

“In September 2015, the league identified a business partner and embarked on the revival of Mbuya Nehanda Training Centre located on the 48-hectare Melfort Farm in Goromonzi,” said Amai Mugabe.

“Intervention took the form of change of use of the then run-down centre from a children’s home to Wilmar Industrial High School.

Renovations were completed in December 2015 and the school opened its doors to the first intake of Form One students in January 2016.”

The school, said Amai Mugabe, has a school curriculum biased towards entrepreneurial courses.

The Women’s League is also looking forward to embarking on farming activities, with Amai Mugabe adding that they will not entertain any idea of leasing out the farms to former white farmers.

Amai Mugabe bemoaned challenges faced by the league in accessing the sugarcane farm at Hippo Valley, with Tongaat Hullet refusing to allow them to take over the farm.

“The Women’s League is at risk of losing two seasons’ harvests of sugarcane proceeds to Tongaat Hullet, which claims that the EU was against the deployment of its resources for the benefit of traditional chiefs and political entities,” she said.

The Women’s League leader argued that only Government, as the sole land allocating authority, should intervene through President Mugabe.

Women and youths in Binga are expected to benefit from the Bulawayo Kraal Irrigation Scheme, which the league has resuscitated in conjunction with the Matabeleland North provincial leadership and the Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development and other departments.

The project, implemented in 2005, was moving at a slow pace and the league engaged a partner to expedite it.

“The project is now operational and currently have 100 hectares of the developed 250 hectares of land under seed maize,” said Amai Mugabe.

“More high value crops will be considered as part of the cropping programme for the scheme. Through this project, the livelihoods of the surrounding Binga communities are bound to improve.”

An additional 150 hectares will be cleared by August to bring the total of land cleared for irrigation to 400 hectares, while a second 10-km pipeline from the Zambezi River to the fields will be constructed.

The league also looks at resuscitating communal irrigation programmes, while supporting them with required agro-equipment and inputs.

It will also complement Government efforts towards increased food production with the dispatch of the Hurudza Farming Tips Teams to provinces, where community-training will be targeted at the league’s membership.

The poultry projects the Women’s League has embarked on will soon roll out a 30 000 chickens, with each province getting 3 000 chicks.

A training programme on poultry business will precede the roll out programme.