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We reproduce here the full text of President Mugabe’s address to the Zanu-PF Central Committee in Harare yesterday.Vice President Cde Emmerson Mnangagwa, Cde Phelekezela Mphoko, secretary for Administration Cde Ignatius Chombo, members of the Politburo, members of the Central Committee, ladies and gentleman, comrades and friends.

I want to begin by welcoming you to this meeting, meeting of the Central Committee and I want to believe this is a second meeting we are holding in accordance with our constitution.

We have four meetings of the Central Committee a year. One meeting each quarter, but of course we can have more. There is business, extra ordinary business that requires our being together. Saka tokugamuchirai nomufaro, ngiyalibengelela kakhulu, tiritose, sisonke.

Once more we meet at the headquarters as the highest policy making body for our party in between congresses.

We do so against the background of an event arguably the largest and most resounding after our 2013 landslide election victory, if not in our history as a party — the Youth League led Million-Man March held here in Harare on Africa Day. That was the most resounding event that we have had in our history and I’m sure it will go down in our own records and perhaps in the records also of the country as one of the most arousing and attractive and impressive and overwhelming event that took place in Zimbabwe in the year of our Lord 2016.

That image of the teeming hundreds upon hundreds of thousands and thousands of our supporters will linger on for a long time, bringing great comfort and reassurance to party members, but at the same time brewing great discomfort and doubting in the minds and hearts of our opponents.

I have no doubt that a clear message went home to all and sundry, both at home and abroad that Zanu-PF lives, and lives in this most overwhelming way. And it remains the only national mass party capable of mobilising Zimbabweans from all fronts and all corners of the country and capable of mobilising them towards national goals and programs.

Yes, today the resounding result is for us to enjoy, but what should never be lost to all of us are its lessons to us as a party and to us as individual members of Zanu-PF.

Through that event we were able to emphatically stamp our authority and dominance in national politics of the country. We started as one united party. United in our organisation means we are united in body, spirit and thought. That event thus demonstrated beyond any shadow of doubt what our party can contrive and achieve through singleness of purpose, well wrought co-ordination and through synergies between and among all its wings and organs, unity again.

And like a perfect body, each organ played its designated part to the utmost and played in co-ordination not in contradiction with the rest.

The organs of our body are synchronised — the heart, the lungs, all of them. The best result was that mammoth gathering at the square which gave the world one thunderous Zanu-PF voice thus sending shock waves beyond our borders and a clear disheartening message to pretenders here at home and abroad.

Given that kind of superlative performance, the sequel should subsist in more programmes that propel the party to higher heights, surely.

What is this discordance now that we hear from certain quarters? Oh no, War veterans’ association leadership? No! We say no! And a big No!

The hallmark of a trained cadre is discipline, impeccable discipline, obedience. The hallmark of a trained cadre is steadfast knowledge of the party line, gwara remusangano. Gwara remusangano. Yes, the hallmark of a genuinely trained cadre is a firm sense of station and hierarchy.

I am what I am. My seniors are what they are. The party is what it is to all of us. Trueness binds us, all of us, but altogether we move in our various posts, various places in harmony not in disorder, not in discordance.

We do not wish to be at odds with young people who were with us yesterday as we fought for our independence. Alongside their peers, they made sacrifices we recognise and appreciate, war veterans. I was! We were, some of us still alive, with them, all the time to the very end.

We appreciate the sacrifices.

The youth took positions which must be hallowed and praised by all our people. But by the same token just as so much is owed them by our party and our nation, so much is expected of them by the same party and nation that readily applaud their contributions.

It has always been the party and the people, the party leading the war veterans, politics leading the gun never the gun leading the politics.

The Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association was formed to cater for the welfare, to cater for the welfare, to cater for the welfare, to cater for the welfare of our veterans. War veterans and not to champion the political struggle, No and Never.

Not to be the boss of the party and never to be the bully of the party. Nor the entity to make the choices to who should lead and who should not. Never ever! Except within the party, within the party always, within the party not outside the party.

The dissidents tried it. They were war veterans, fighters and you know what happened. Lots of troubles, lots of fighting, lots of suffering caused to our people and dissident activities can not be allowed again.

When in December 1987, Cde Joshua Nkomo and I, put our hands together and our hearts together and said never again shall we allow this to happen.

We shall always be the unity of Zapu and ZANU, ZANU and Zapu.

And so, that unity was not just the unity of the people without the war veterans. It was to bring an end to the war, shall I say that the dissidents had decided to win.

Do we see another rise of the dissident activities? Well, we the leadership, with our experience say no.

No war veterans association! No, it’s not your function! It’s not your business to talk of who shall succeed the President.

And worse still and I’m stunned, to threaten that unless what you do, unless your wish is fulfilled in so far as your choice there shall be bloodshed. Bloodshed? You want to spill the blood again? We say that cannot be allowed now and steps have got to be taken.

It is not proper for anyone to use this welfare body as a platform, that is use the war veterans association as a platform for attacking the top leadership,or for seeking to direct party processes in a certain direction preferred by some individuals within that body. To do so would amount, once again to going the way of the dissidents.

The mandate of the association doesn’t allow it. Stick to your mandate! Study the welfare, the situation regarding the welfare of the comrades and report that through the ministry. There is a ministry. We established for the purpose. The party has organs and platforms from which to address all questions of the day.

The party constitution is very clear and remains the bible for all who genuinely belong to it. We must respect the rules drawn by the party, indeed respect organs, the organs and personages, personages occupying those organs.

When we establish organs, branches, provinces, Politburo, Central Committee, congress and people are appointed to fill in places in those organs.

We are establishing a structure to govern the party, to give rules to the party. That must be obeyed by each and everyone. And those persons who are appointed by the President and First Secretary of the party and who carry about the business of the party. The weight of it, having been appointed, must be respected.

Those in authority like we are, we are in authority. Yesterday we met as the executive organs of the party to execute with which we report to Central Committee. We are in authority to do that. Here we are in authority also to represent congress.

So, those who are in authority must be respected. The appointments we make must be respected and not denigrated.

We expect that to be respected by all and sundry unless there are other motives and intentions.

So, let us all build on the stupendous gains that we have made through the Million-Man March, itself a fitting climax to our resounding electoral victory of the year 2013.

Cdes, as I address you, the country is going through challenges of an economic nature. We are in the process of steering our economy towards sustainable growth. As we do that, there is bound to be challenges. There are bound to be challenges of a teething nature, challenges of adjustment. And as I address you, cash shortages what is referred to as liquidity in those economic terms.

Cash shortages are being faced across the board by our people who cannot easily access their savings or earnings. You might have deposited money in the bank, you have savings in the bank, but there is no money.

But this is a temporary problem which should be behind us soon, sooner rather than later.

We have been operating under a basket of currencies belonging to foreign countries even then in reality the basket has tended to carry just one currency, the United States dollar which as you know comes to us only to the extent of our earnings by way of exports. But beyond being a medium of exchange, the United States dollar has become a commodity. A well sought after commodity by all manner of people from different nations who were or are venturing into our country to cream off our little earnings denominated in United States dollars. We cannot allow the situation to continue like that.

Take all countries around us Mozambique, Botswana, Zambia, South Africa et cetera. They have their own currencies. But they need the dollar also for their international external activities, trade and other activities and they come here. And Cde Chinamasa has said we are now like a fishing pool where there are fishermen who come to this country to fish the dollar here.

And so they get away with our dollars and since we don’t print the dollars, they are American, unless our volume of exports, you know increases, we are left with less and less and less each time.

So Finance and the Reserve Bank conceived a way in which we could have met the challenge that is by issuing bond notes.

The issue of bond coins, when it started, sure, some people were suspicious and hesitant to accept it, but they easily accepted it the first time.

The second time when it was announced that they were going to the second stage of bond notes. Ah, so much criticism now has came, but it has been discussed with the industry and other institutions and we think those who are opposed to it are really either politically doing so or are doing so out of ignorance, but we know it can work really well.

So, the issue of bond notes that we explained to our people all the more so against the very little disinformation which is being mounted by the opposition. We will have bond notes in fact by an amount of $200 million secured from one of our generous banks and African banks.

So this generous African bank knows about the plan and supports it and we hope when the bond notes will come they will certainly prove to be the cure of the challenge we have, the best cure is that we have our own currency being introduced.

As our reserves grow, so will the population of bond notes also grow, all to ensure one to one correspondence between bond notes in circulation and the US dollar notes we have in our reserve that is the US notes, the $200 million that we shall be holding in our banks.

But the idea is to stop those crooks who were taking advantage of the availability of the United States dollar in the market to spirit it away. They will now have to deal in bond notes as a surrogate currency, surrogate to the United States currency that we hold in our vaults.

The intervention is thus well meant and calculated to protect our foreign currency earnings.

Our country is rated second to South Africa in terms of industrialisation in Southern Africa and abundant manufacturing for trade. Because of the sanctions and other challenges that we faced, there was this shrinkage of the economy and industries could not operate as before. So, they were reduced to producing goods for the domestic market and not enough to enable us to export.

We thus were no longer creating wealth, but only trading in wealth created by other economies by way of irrational imports that were flooding and that are still flooding our markets. So, it’s more of importation and to import we need to use the US dollar which is now growing less and less in our vaults.

Change was thus necessary and hence the raft of measures we have since adopted, which should restore and put the ethic of productivity at the core of our overall planning.

VaChinamasa will be talking about it, about some of the plans that he has in mind, which we shall work on together to improve the economic situation.

Our target is agriculture itself, our mainstay that is the key input supplier to our industries. Of course, the starting point is that we must return to food self-sufficiency and the two Vice Presidents, I am glad to say, have been pushing very hard in this regard.

Food, food, food, food for the people. Food, food, food, must be produced wherever there is water, let’s produce it. Let’s use the water to produce the food.

To feed ourselves, it’s only when our tummies are full that we can see all other hungry people away in other countries and we can export. But before we satisfy our own requirements, we continue to be the consumers of our own products.

There is a concerted effort to rehabilitate our irrigation infrastructure, so we are able to turn the many water bodies that we have in the country into a veritable resource for beating back the El Nino phenomenon. El Nino factor and any other future droughts.

The programme of mechanising our agriculture continues, assisted of course, by friendly countries like Brazil and Belarus and not to mention China and Russia.

The strategy should be able to be one of setting crop targets. So, the coming season sees a real turn around in our agricultural efforts.

In other words, we must be better next season. And we are saying whether we have drought or not, the water that we have on the ground should enable us to produce more food than we were able to do this last season.

But if the rains come, well and good, that abundance of rain should be made good use of. The party must be ready to relate to these initiatives which will manifest themselves through Government departments.

The call to full productivity should be the clarion call of our party. Soon, I also shall be visiting the provinces to gauge our readiness for this thrust which must change our fortunes.

In the meantime it is vitally important that food relief reaches every village, every household in need.

I am aware that whilst there is enough food in the country, secured through our inputs, there are logistical shortcomings which have hindered food distribution and therefore food access at household level.

Some places are not getting enough food because of transport difficulties. The party must help the Government in mobilising transport so that food reaches every corner and every family in need.

Access to food must never be coloured by political considerations. Only by needs. Where is their need? Regardless of whether the community supports or does not support Zanu-PF. Everyone must survive, even the thieves must survive. No Zimbabwean must go without food, let alone starve.

Our party is a party of liberation. It must always show objective leadership and impeccable leadership above all, it must earn and retain the trust of the people.

This cannot happen in circumstances where we needlessly jockey for positions and influence. We have an election, some people wanted YX to win others wanted AB to win. So if YX wins, those who support AB must support the result, that’s what we call democracy.

Zvino zvaunonzwa kuti ah, pakaitika election, vamwe vanga vachida mai ngana kana kuti mai ngana vakaruza vakazodyiwa namai ngana. Zvino ava amai vakahwina vaakutsvagirwa mhosva kunzi vanosupporter People First chokwadi ndakavaona vari munhu wePeople First.

Zvakazouya vahwina? Torega kudaro. Hongu ngatiti tinogona kuita vatinoti, you are supporting this candidate, but others also have their candidates and the candidate who wins must be applauded by all of us and he becomes our holder of a particular post.

When fighting for the posts also, the post yandiinayo iyi ndinotoda kuti ndiwane aindicelebrator ari kuda kuti ndiwire muvhu ndakunotsvaga chigaro kune munhu ari kuHouse of Assembly kunokwikwidzana naye iwe wanga uri kuSenate.

Ko wakaregerei kuita pakaitwa maelections, waakuda kusunda mumwe kuti abve ugopinda iwe?

Zvakanaka here izvozvo? Aah, makwikwi erudzi irworwo anoitirwei? Our Zanu-PF way is that we are democratic. We hold these elections because the election will decide the winner and the winner should not make the loser sour.

But finally, as we drift closer and closer to elections, we must take full stock of our structures ensuring that our people stay ready and mobilised.

Above all, the party must be in the lead in addressing the needs of our people. The youth recently made known their expectations, the war veterans whose families must be supported.

Our women, by way of the many livelihood projects they want to see supported SMEs etcetera. That way we keep our party in tip-top condition. Indeed in a state in which it is unassailable. We have talked about restructuring the party.

But when a party is well restructured and you have branches and cells of the party, there must be proof that we have membership, genuine membership and the proof of it is the registration, proof of registration is the possession and holding of the card, the membership cards.

Now we, at the headquarters, would want to see that achievement of so many people registered, so many people with membership cards also making their subscriptions.

So, VaMphoko vanenge vakagaririra kuno. You can’t say you have a hundred thousand members when you registered two each one having a membership card.

Where is the proof of subscription? So, we will have to have an auditing system. So, when I visit the provinces as I said I shall, that is also one aspect I will look at.

At the province we should be sufficiently computerised. I don’t know whether we have enough computers, do we VaMphoko. We have? For the purpose? Ok! There it is.

So, let us have parties which are genuinely in existence and not just mere assumptions. Party organs which are in existence genuinely. The proof is as I have described it.

When we come for deliberations, we will deliberate on issues in accordance with the agenda and we shall look at it and I hope we work together, we remain together.

Let us not be put into sixes and sevens by the opposition which is writing nonsense all the time of my wife or People’s First.

AnaBiti are claiming coalitions which are coalitions still in the air and never concretised incompetent, but it doesn’t matter — all can come together, all of them bundled together.

ZANU-PF is saying group, in a matter in which we desire, we give you just one of these (showing clenched fist). One electoral blow, electoral blow come 2018.

I hope we are building that one huge fist which will settle firmly once again all the little party organisations. I hope our preparations will be a success today.

Pamberi nekubatana! Pamberi neZanu-PF! Pasi neMDC!