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Mukudzei Chingwere

Herald Reporter

Vice President Kembo Mohadi has implored the nation to embrace reverse engineering to make products suitable for Zimbabwe as part of efforts to revive the economy, leveraging on technology.

VP Mohadi said the country’s education system had played an important precursor role in producing a literate society, which he says must now be buttressed by innovation.

He gave an example of the Chinese, who grew from an agrarian society to a global industrial super power, and now boasts of being one of the largest economies in the world.

“That is education as other people define it, but to us as your leaders, as Zimbabweans we have to take it further than just attaining qualifications.

“This is our country and we have to develop it ourselves without anyone else. We are under sanctions yes, but we cannot always be talking about sanctions,” said VP Mohadi.

“We want to get to a situation where we do reverse engineering, we make things our own way, we want to see a Zimbabwean car for example.

“The Chinese are where they are because of reverse engineering.

“They did not need to reinvent the wheel because those things were already there but they did it their own way,” said VP Mohadi.

VP Mohadi was speaking in Epworth, Harare after he was shown innovation spearheaded by a local company of converting the traditional pit latrines into the flushing system technology.

“This appropriate technology improves the WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) compliance of communities in line with the envisaged Vision 2030.

“It is incumbent upon the Ministry of Health and Child Care to look into this technology to assess its efficacy before national rollout.

“The Government supports and enhances synergy between industry, academia and local authorities in the provision of appropriate technology for our institutions,” said VP Mohadi.

On Covid-19, VP Mohadi reiterated that following a spike in infections, the best way to fight the virus was prevention.

He said given the resilience and the discipline of Zimbabweans, the curve of infections was supposed to start flattening in two months.

Projects director for Santinton Contractors Mr Edwin Mhlaba, the pioneers of the Eaziflush System, said they were looking at embarking on a massive rollout of the project in Zimbabwe.

The company is involved in huge projects in South Africa and Botswana and the directors, who are Zimbabweans, are now looking at penetrating the local market.

The company said it had the capacity to install 30 000 systems for the lower end of the market per month and 10 000 for the upper end.