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Blessings Chidakwa Herald Reporter

The construction of the Museum of African Liberation should be accorded all the necessary support it deserves including financial one as this is a noble way of preserving the African legacy, Parliament Portfolio committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade has said.

Speaking after touring the Liberation City housing the museum on Tuesday, the committee chairperson Cde Webster Shamu paid tribute to President Mnangagwa pushing for this great vision saying this goes to underscore the fact that Pan-Africanism is invincible.

Cde Shamu said arguably a lot of people in Zimbabwe lack proper understanding regarding the magnitude of the museum project which accords the country an opportunity not only to preserve its own liberation history, but for Africa itself to preserve its own history.

“We have seen many times our history is spoken about and written by people who do not come from Africa, but here now we are saying to ourselves in Africa that we must be masters of our own destiny.

That destiny begins with your own history.

“We want to preserve the legacy of African liberation and there is now way that is better than through the Museum of African history,” he said. Cde Shamu said the guarantee for that legacy to be preserved is through education.

“We would like to see more and more school children coming here to see for themselves where Africa came from.

“We are all Africans and always say we are not only born in Africa, but Africa is born in us and therefore support for this project is indeed mandatory,” he said.

Cde Shamu said hopes that the Minister of Finance and Economic Development will act to ensure that this project is fully supported.

Institute of African Knowledge chief executive Ambassador Kwame Muzawazi said the construction of the museum has reached 11 percent which is way ahead of what they thought would have reached by now.

“So we are still on course to open the Museum by the end of 2023 and we are expecting that this will be a landmark monument not just for Zimbabwe, SADC, but the whole African continent.

“The museum itself has registered great progress, even buy in from international partners.

“Also the development of value addition facilities such as the liberation mall, heritage village as well as the animal park itself are also underway.  So far so good, but we wish to expedite the pace,” he said.

Ambassador Muzawazi said the museum is going to add value to the economy of the country in terms of tourist traffic, the diplomatic and political prestige of Zimbabwe’s host of the story of the liberation struggle.

“Academically scholars will be coming to Zimbabwe to study the story of African history. There is a lot of benefit that the people of Zimbabwe are going to yield out of this,” he said.