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Blessings Chidakwa Midlands Bureau
Government has started rolling out provincial consultative and sensitisation workshops on the formulation of Zim-Asset II to ensure the economic blueprint’s continued success across the country. A delegation led by the Ministry of Macro-Economic Planning and Investment Promotion and the Office of the President and Cabinet held the first consultations in the Midlands Province at a two-day workshop, which started on Monday in Gweru.

The principal director, Economic Planning and Modelling in the Ministry of Macro-Economic Planning and Investment Promotion Mr Taguma Mahonde told officials from Government, the private sector and civil society that the consultative meetings were aimed at including all sectors of the economy in the formulation of Zim-Asset II.

“We have so far engaged 14 critical sectors of the economy to get their contributions and we are now cascading down to all the country’s 10 provinces in order to engage all the relevant stakeholders,” he said.

“Last time there were concerns that a few consultations were done on Zim-Asset 1, but this time we are engaging all the concerned sectors so that we come up with another sound document.” Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Macro-Economic Planning and Investment Promotion Dr Judith Kateera said while Zim-Asset 1 was ending in 2018, Government had started engaging stakeholders so that there would be a smooth transition.

“We will still do a concluding report on the first Zim-Asset at the end of 2018, but as part of good planning we have now started talking about the second part in small phases,” said Dr Kateera. The first ZimAsset has been credited for spearheading the turnaround and development of the economy. It is aligned to Zanu-PF’s 2013 winning election manifesto and has clusters which include food security and nutrition, social services and poverty reduction, infrastructure and utilities and value addition and beneficiation.