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Herald Reporter

The First Family, through its farming enterprises, Precabe, yesterday joined corporates that donated towards the fight against Covid-19 and gave 90 tonnes of maize.

Mr Patrick Mnangagwa, younger brother to the President and active in management of the farm, presented the donation at State House yesterday to his elder brother, alongside other corporates that also made their donations.

Presenting the donation, Mr Mnangagwa said: “We are Precabe Enterprises, a farming company operating in the Midlands Province in Kwekwe District. We are doing mixed farming, which includes horticulture, animal husbandry and cattle ranching.

We do commercial crops, which include wheat, maize, sugar beans, soya beans, and barley. Currently we are harvesting our summer crops and we have taken this opportunity to donate maize in the fight against this pandemic.

We have brought 90 tonnes of maize valued at $1,1 million. I will leave this donation to the responsible authorities.”

In his remarks after all the donations, including Precabe’s, President Mnangagwa said no donation was small or big.

He said the Covid-19 pandemic had exhibited a devastating effect on human life across continents.

The President said the virus attacked with viciousness, countries with state-of-the-art health services and infrastructure and with the same vigour attacked health systems which were fragile.

“We decided as Zimbabwe that we call upon every single citizen and say we have this challenge as a people,” said the President.

“This attack knows no boundary, knows no status. It will affect the affluent and it will attack the poor with similar viciousness. In mobilising ourselves to mitigate, to fight this pandemic no one should be left behind. We all have to put our shoulders to the wheel. Besides, as Zimbabwe, we are not as developed as countries in the first world. We don’t have a strong economy like countries in the First World. We don’t have sophisticated health services infrastructure as countries in the First World.”

President Mnangagwa said Zimbabwe was disadvantaged in every sense, but with determination, discipline and compliance the country could go a long way in mitigating against the impact of the  pandemic.

“We decided to study the recommendations of the World Health Organisation and we felt some of the recommendations by WHO we could adopt them as tools to fight this pandemic,” said President Mnangagwa.

“This includes the lockdown. The lockdown means that we are putting the preservation of life as a priority, but the opposite of that we are also exposing our fragile economy to the impact of the pandemic in terms of our industry and our economy being attacked because of the lockdown.”

The donation, with the First Family setting an example rather than just talking about the matter, is seen as showing the importance that President Mnangagwa and First Lady Auxilia Mnangagwa attach to the fight.