BY Phyllis Mbanje

An outbreak of diarrhoea has been reported in parts of Harare’s Glen View, Budiriro and Glen Norah suburbs where over 22 people, mostly children, have been affected by the disease. The three high-density suburbs were epicentres for the cholera outbreak which claimed over 54 people late last year.

Harare City Council health director Prosper Chonzi confirmed the outbreak, saying since last week they had been noticing an increase in the number of diarrhoeal cases from clinics in those three suburbs.

“Glen View B is the worst affected. These cases have mostly been in areas where people have not had water for about a week and they have resorted to using water from shallow wells, some of them unprotected. This might be the reason,” he said.

Chonzi, however, noted that they had been examining stools from patients and so far they have not confirmed whether there is cholera or typhoid.

“We just believe they are infectious diarrhoeas, but it is too (early) for comfort, so we are advising people in those areas to use water sparingly and also use treated water.

“If you are not confident of the supplier of water, just boil it, use aqua tablets to treat the water and make sure you practice good personal hygiene,” he said.

The city health director also said because of limited water supplies people were resorting to open defecation.

“Because there is no running water, people tend to use the bush relieve themselves; that worsens the situation. In our health promotion messages, we urge people to practise good personal hygiene and make sure they use treated water,” he added.

Chonzi said they have 24-hour reaction teams working around the clock, surveilling any health-related issues.

Chonzi urged anyone, particularly those with children suffering from diarrhoea in these areas — because they succumb faster than adults, to go to the clinic and get screened for free.

Meanwhile, civic organisation Community Water Alliance said most of the affected areas were experiencing frequent burst sewers.

The chairperson for the organisation Hildaberta Rwambiwa said the outbreak was fast getting out of hand in Glen View.

The organisation’s focal person for ward 32 Joylene Nyachuru said sewer bursts and blockages have not been attended to for weeks now as council’s Glen View district office had no fuel to attend to emergencies.

“It seems they are failing to have a permanent solution to sewer bursts and blockages challenges,” she said.

Chengetayi Mapaya

BY DANIEL NHAKANISO

ZIMBABWE triple jump sensation Chengetayi Mapaya is basking in glory after a memorable weekend in which he qualified for the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Track and Field Championships to be held in Qatar from September 27 to October 6.

The 20-year-old student, who is on a track and field scholarship at Texas Christian University (TCU) in the United States, underlined his status as one of the rising stars in the sport after winning the triple jump title at the prestigious NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships at the University of Texas last Friday.

Mapaya, who was in third place going into his sixth and final jump, flew 17,13 metres — the first time he has jumped over 17m in his young career — in the process passing up event leader and pre-competition favourite Jordan Scott of Virginia (17,01m) to win the national championship.

It was TCU’s first national title in track and field since American professional track and field athlete Ronnie Baker won the 60m dash in 2016.

More importantly, Mapaya’s massive leap, which is the 12th best triple jump mark in the world at the moment, ensured he booked his ticket to the World Championships in Doha.

“I had the advantage in that I was the last jumper, so I actually knew what I had to jump,” Mapaya said.

“It was amazing. I’ve always wanted to jump 17 meters and 56 feet. I believed and I did it.”

Mapaya, who earned First Team All-America Honors, shattered his own school record of 16,64m (54-7,25), set earlier this season at the National Relay Championships in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The former George’s College student paid tribute to his coaches for his success.

“I want to thank all my coaches, friends and everyone who is a part of me. Without everyone’s support I would not have gotten here. My emotions are confused right now but I’m happy.

“I have qualified for the IAAF World Championships in September, so the grind doesn’t stop. Grateful for my second year in America and best believe there is more,” he said in a post on his Instagram page.

Qualifying for the World Championships will be the first step in Mapaya’s goal of not only qualifying for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games but also make it to the final of the global quadrennial showpiece.

BY KEVIN MAPASURE

Egypt’s technical team is not taking the Warriors lightly, despite Zimbabwe being billed lightweights of Group A in the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers finals.

Zimbabwe and Egypt will play the curtain raiser of the tournament at the 80 000-seater Cairo Stadium on Friday next week. Egypt have been doing their homework on the Sunday Chidzambga-coached side as they target a perfect start in a tournament they rate themselves as hot favourites.

The Warriors played Nigeria in an international friendly on Saturday and the match finished in a nil-all stalemate.

Egypt will play Tanzania tomorrow in their first warm-up match and Chidzambga (pictured), like what the Egyptians did on Friday, will be a keen observer.

The hosts nation’s assistant coach Hany Ramzy said they were closely monitoring the Warriors and have since observed that Zimbabwe can be very difficult to break down while their speedy forwards are always a threat.

“We are monitoring the Zimbabwe team very well. They are known for their solid defence, quick attacks and for depending on long balls,” Ramzy said.

“It will be a strong start. We hope to get a positive result as it would be a good boost to continue our campaign successfully.”

Under Mexican coach Javier Aguirre, Egypt have adopted a more adventurous approach to their play and they will be looking to use that against the Warriors.

Egypt and Zimbabwe have Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo for company in their group, with the top two teams guaranteed passage to the knockout stages, while there is an extra window for third-place finishers depending on outcomes in other groups in the 24-team tournament.

Aguirre has observed that Uganda, DR Congo and Zimbabwe have similar attributes with all three blessed with pace upfront.

He also expects all three to be well-organised at the back.

“The three teams are similar to a big extent in terms of organisation. They have pace which they perfectly use to hit their opponents on the break,” Aguirre told the Egyptian FZ’s website.

“This will put us under pressure and we will have to be fully focused on taking our chances.”

The former Mexico boss also said Egypt need to make the most of their home advantage.

The Pharaohs won the title the last time they hosted the tournament in 2006.

“You [the fans] have a big role to play to help us win the trophy. Don’t waste this chance,” he told the fans.

The mentor has decided to go for experience in his squad selection, roping in players that he believes can withstand the pressure of expectation at home.

“Egypt’s hosting of the Nations Cup opened the door for some experienced players,” Aguirre said.

“We want to make the most of their experience and recent fine displays.”

The seven-time African champions have 17 locally-based players in their squad, but have one of the best players in the world in Liverpool forward Mohammed Salah.

Salah is expected to pay a key part in his nations’ campaign for an eighth Afcon title, but despite his profile, Zimbabwe’s defenders have said they hold no fears.

This week Chidzambga said his team had learnt a lot in their experience against Nigeria on Saturday.

He said his team would draw a lot of confidence from their performance against the Super Eagles, especially considering that they managed to keep a clean sheet against the former African champions.

Zimbabwe will play their final warm-up match against Tanzania on Sunday, with Egypt polishing up against Guinea on the same day.

Zimbabwe 2019 Afcon squad:

Goalkeepers: George Chigova, Edmore Sibanda, Elvis Chipezeze

Defenders: Tendayi Darikwa, Jimmy Dzingai, Divine Lunga, Teenage Hadebe, Alec Mudimu, Ronald Pfumbidzai

Midfielders: Marshall Munetsi, Marvelous Nakamba, Danny Phiri, Ovidy Karuru, Kuda Mahachi, Talent Chawapihwa, Khama Billiat, Knowledge Musona, Tafadzwa Kutinyu, Thabani Kamusoko

Strikers: Nyasha Mushekwi, Tino Kadewere, Evans Rusike, Knox Mutizwa

BY TAWANDA TAFIRENYIKA

NEVER mind the first instalment of this year’s blockbuster clash between the domestic football’s biggest rivals — Highlanders and Dynamos — there always comes at a time both giants are battling to lift themselves out of trouble.

It’s sure to be fascinating at Barbourfields on Sunday, with both the Harare giants Dynamos and their hosts Highlanders demanding responses after indifferent performances, which have seen both sides struggle at the lower echelons of the table.

There have been some classics between the two sides in recent years and football fans expect another one.

The two have been in similar circumstances, where the Harare giants had a sluggish start to the campaign under Lloyd Chigowe before Tonderai Ndiraya took over, while Highlanders have also been poor.

Both can ill afford another defeat at this stage and certainly not in this fixture, almost guaranteeing fans a thriller.

Madinda Ndlovu’s men are entangled in the drop zone, lying in fourth position from the bottom with a paltry 11 points out of a possible 33 points. They have won just two, drawn five and lost four.

Their strike force has scored just five goals — the worst scoring rate in the topflight which they share with TelOne.

Highlanders are also coming from a dispiriting 1-0 defeat to Yadah FC and will be determined to bounce back.

Dynamos might have undergone a major transformation under Ndiraya and have, at times, exhibited some battling qualities which have seen them posting some good results including a memorable victory over defending champions FC Platinum.

Although they have scored only seven goals thus far, they have won four matches, drawn three and lost four. They lie in 10th place with 15 points.

In their previous encounter against Manica Diamonds, they shared the spoils following a 0-0 draw, a result that did not please Ndiraya.

Caps United and Chicken Inn will be both looking to bounce back following defeats at the weekend when the Green Machine host TelOne on Sunday, while the GameCocks have an away assignment against Triangle.

PSL weekend fixtures

Saturday: Bulawayo Chiefs v FC Platinum (Luveve), Chapungu v Yadah (Mandava), Black Rhinos v ZPC Kariba (NSS), Harare City v Herentals (Rufaro).

Sunday: Caps United v TelOne (NSS), Triangle v Chicken Inn (Gibbo), Mushowani v Hwange (Rufaro), Highlanders v Dynamos (Barbourfields), manica Diamonds v Ngezi Platinum Stars (Vengere)

BY SHARON SIBINDI

VICTORIA FALLS-BASED award-winning poet, Obert Dube, has said the use of social media to market his work has seen him attracting business as his performance bookings have increased.

Dube told NewsDay Life & Style that his decision, which has paid off, followed advice from fans to use social media as a marketing tool.

“Last year was not a good year for me, but this time around I have been working hard in terms of promoting my work. My fans advised me to use social media to reach out to the people,” he said.

“I have been working on it and I post on WhatsApp and Facebook and people share. This is working well for me and my bookings have improved.”

Dube said promoters started approaching him after seeing his video clips circulating on social media.

“I have more than 50 clips and the best, Spend Carefully, has over 360 000 views. It’s trending online. It talks about me having a short time fling with a girl,” he said.

“South Africans loved it and shared the clip and across Africa, anyone who understands the joke, loved it.”

Dube said he recently missed an event in the United Kingdom after some bureaucratic bottlenecks in securing his passport.

“In October, however, I will be in Botswana attending a festival. I have a lot of bookings lined up and God is helping me,” he said.

Dube received an award at the National Arts Merit Awards in 2014 for being an outstanding poet. He has performed at several functions, including the unveiling of the statue of the late former Vice-President Joshua
Nkomo.

Editorial Comment

BARELY four days after Mashonaland West province raised an SOS on the shortage of anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs), Health minister Obadiah Moyo had the temerity to tell the Parliamentary Thematic Committee on HIV and Aids that the country had adequate supplies of ARVs stocked up at National Pharmaceutical Company (NatPharm) to last until the first quarter of 2020.

This is despite reports that integrated TB and HIV centres in some parts of the country were struggling for supplies of Ab a-lam, with others dispensing expired life-saving drugs as a stop-gap measure.

That the country has a perennial shortage of the precious lifesaving drugs is not a secret and neither is the fact that NatPharm is mired in distribution challenges which have seen some drugs expiring before reaching their intended beneficiaries.

Moyo’s claims are shallow considering the fact that supply of the medicines is still dependent on foreign aid through the Global Fund.

For years, the government has relied heavily on foreign aid, a situation which puts patients in a precarious position should the donors decide to pull the plug and stop their funding.

A recent fact-finding tour of NatPharm by the parliamentary committee revealed that the warehouse was still dependent on donor supplies for its stocks.

People’s lives are on the line and it defies all logic that a whole minister, who claims to be the custodian of the Health ministry, will embark on cheap politicking to save his face. It makes a whole lot of sense to be honest and report facts as they are. Hiding behind a façade will not alleviate the sad situation.

A top United Nations official on Monday said about 1,1 million people living with HIV were struggling to access anti-retroviral medication in the Cyclone Idai-distressed countries, which include Zimbabwe.

In essence, it means Zimbabwe has a bigger challenge, which is being compounded by officials who “cook up” figures and facts so they might appear like they are working hard.

Maybe the minister needs to be reminded that the million-plus lives that depend on ARVs are hanging in the balance as he goes around presenting a perfect scenario when on the ground, nothing has really changed.

We understand his pressure to outdo his predecessors, but at what cost? Wouldn’t it be better to raise the red flag and get help than pretend it is all under control when clearly it is not. His ministry is going to the dogs with serious health disasters looming at every corner.

Moyo is a likeable character, no doubt, but real commitment backed by real resources and action is what the people of Zimbabwe expect of the good minister. Let us promptly sort out the drug situation before embarking on ambitious programmes of turning public health facilities into state-of-the-art hospitals with empty drug shelves.

Guest Column: Brian Sedze

The economic challenges facing Zimbabwe are not about money. Our major issue is deficiency of a supportive government with competencies to design policies that enable innovation and value creation.

The country should also not pin its hopes and aspirations on welfare economics, but rather, it must trade for success. That trade requires new products and solutions instead of benevolence.

National leaders should also disabuse themselves from the fallacy of new money from Bretton Woods, but instead walk into private banks with bankable projects.
The importance of the Bretton Woods institutions should basically be the simultaneous and sequential signalling that the country is not in good hands.

The ‘open for business’ credo, itself a flawed public policy initiative, is premised on foreign direct injection of money. The government expects money without creating a platform for ideas. A country that needs money should be alive to the fact that money chases ideas, not vice-versa. Without ideas, money will not come. Instead, we have to be content with resource robbers.

Creative ideas, intellectual property and new knowledge enable conversations with private banks, venture and private equity firms, among many global funding options. Ideas should be to creatively solve unique challenges, satisfy local demand and for the production of exports to the world.

At the moment, all the government is seized with is trying to solve old problems with new money. New money must be used to create new demand and export orientation.

The government mindset is warped and captured in the old in that they believe the old industries should be resurrected and made to run again. But opposed to that, it should throw away the bravado and have a starting point, where we have to think afresh as if there were no Zimbabwean industries at all.

One Langton Chirinda said:“Zimbabwe should be viewed as completely dead economy-wise and that we have to think afresh as if there were no Zimbabwean industries at all!”

In that respect, we should see the government embark on massive trial and error through research and development budgets! This must be the biggest budget for now — to stir up new thinking that would result in new industries and a new economy!

The government should no longer view itself as this Leviathan that exists to tax existing industries and few employees to the last cent, fix market failures, provide public goods, fund infrastructure and correct industry externalities, but instead drive the next big revolution in innovation and germination of new enterprises.

Let us learn from the Americans and Rhodesians.

The United States became a powerhouse by directly supporting those who were innovative. It often had to move from an innovation policy maker to a player, the reason why the coolest tech companies are American. In fact, some of their great industries germinated within the army. America is great because of innovation, not resources.

Ian Smith made Rhodesia a breadbasket by supporting industries in agriculture. Rhodesian products commanded respect and had demand across the region due to the implementation of quality ideas in agriculture.

In fact, most of the few agricultural products we still export are relics of the colonial government economic initiatives. The country has failed to move forward, nearly four decades later.

Hundreds of manufacturing and service industries post-1965’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence in Rhodesia depended on agricultural inputs to germinate and run.

We are presently producing products and services that our regional peers and trade partners already have a better competitive advantage comparatively. We will not create valuable exports by investing in this old way of thinking.

Import substitution is a great option, but it should be done by creating and leapfrogging new processes and technology. Investing in ensuring that our country is not being taken advantage by neighbours is a start to great import substitution.

The country may leverage on its resources to create more value instead of just deriving national pride from good soils, great weather and minerals. Is it not shocking that upmarket furniture shops in Zimbabwe import from the United Arab Emirates, an arid country without significant forests and cattle?

The crowds that advise the President (Presidential Advisory Council (PAC), Cabinet, government “technocrats” and other informal structures) should start with this very basic new truth. The new truth is that the country doesn’t need economic renewal, but a complete new birth.

With this new truth, the President should start with a national plan, then derive a structure (ministries and State actors) from there. Structure follows strategy, not vice versa.

Zero-based budgets must be implemented: They should be speaking to national strategy of value creation. More resources should be applied in the generation of the new, instead of feeding the same old and non-value adding structures.

A lot of ministries should be disbanded as they were able to only serve the 1980 economic realities, and not those of 2018. The country should have more ministries focussed on re-birth, creating a new economy and a new Zimbabwe with a focus on radical and disruptive initiatives.

The much touted mega deals, unfortunately, are not exactly the answer as they are mostly based on primary resources. Exporting our chrome, gold, tobacco, lithium, gold, coffee and so forth, without a value addition, will build industries in other countries.

In fact, the companies driving mega-deals are doing exactly what we should be doing. Walk into private banks with business plans to borrow. Not much equity is invested by these companies, rather they invest in ideas.

In their stride, the major idea is that Zimbabweans are sleeping on their laurels and their minerals can be taken after paying a pittance.

To enable creation of the new, the government must entrench fiscal laws that are punitive to exporting raw and a reward system for value adding industries.

Part of the success matrix is to reward technology transfers and local human capital capacitation. Though implemented halfheartedly, value addition proposal in ZimAsset was a step in the right direction.

Beyond the metrics of creating both employment and spurring investment, it is also of strategic importance to have nationals controlling primary resources. The badly negotiated mega-deals disinherits our children.

If we invest in thinking, idea formulation and commercialisation of innovations, we are likely to meet success. This idea of thinking we can just have money without investing in ideas will continue our circle of poverty. We have to create the new.

 Brian Sedze is strategy consultant and president of Free Enterprise Initiative. Free Enterprise Initiative is an advocacy in less government, free enterprise, fiscal and public policy. He can be contacted on brian.sedze@gmail.com

By Farai Matiashe

NEWLY-formed Zimbabwe Total Independence party leader Elias Tapfumaneyi Mbabvu has called for President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s resignation, accusing him of failing to resolve the country’s economic crisis.

Addressing a media briefing in Harare recently, Mbabvu said for the country to progress, Mnangagwa should step down as it was now clear that he had failed to turn around the economy.

He said he does not believe that the country’s economic decay was a result of Western sanctions imposed on the country following the 2000 chaotic land reform programme.

“Mnangagwa must step down for change to take place,” Mbabvu said.

“All these problems the country is facing, from high a inflation rate, unemployment to shortages of basic commodities, in our view, their causes … are not a result of sanctions, but rather, Zanu PF and their leader Mnangagwa.

“Mnangagwa has failed to put the country in order in all aspects, especially in as far as the economy is concerned. The economy is worsening by the end of each day and it is the ordinary person who is suffering. The ordinary Zimbabwean men and women are failing to provide food for their families or sending their children to school. Life in Zimbabwe at this point is unbearable.”

He the declared: “The best leader by the end of the day is the one who can fix the economy and deal with day-to-day inflation levels and the runaway economy which has turned out to be the worst world over.

“There is need to immediately adopt and enforce a genuine national currency which will help in avoiding any further erosion of the personal incomes.”

He added that priority should be given to the regeneration and growth of the industry employing the latest technological trends.

The ZTI leader said the Mnangagwa-led government should refrain from continuous human rights abuses, adding the Zanu PF leader’s actions were clear that he was turning Zimbabwe into a military State.

BY CHARLES LAITON

Former Zanu PF youth leader Kudzanai Chipanga has approached the High Court seeking stay of his criminal trial at the Harare Magistrates’ Court.

Chipanga is being charged together with Innocent Hamandishe and Rodney Dangarembizi for allegedly communicating falsehoods, causing dissatisfaction in the army and undermining public confidence in the Zimbabwe Defence Forces following a Press conference they held at the Zanu PF Headquarters in Harare at the height of the ruling party’s factional fights almost two years ago.

However, Chipanga and his co-accused have argued that they cannot proffer their defences in the absence of a statement by Chiwenga, which formed the basis of their prosecution.

In his court application, Chipanga and his colleagues said the State appeared determined to continue with their trial despite the fact that they made an application for further particulars, which was dismissed after which they filed an application for review at the High Court, which application is still pending.

“On April 23, 2019, applicants (Chipanga, Hamandishe and Dangarembizi) appeared before the second respondent (Edwin Marecha.NO) … On the same day, applicants applied for an order directing first respondent (State) to supply applicants with certain particulars and on May 22, 2019, the second respondent dismissed the application,” Chipanga’s lawyers said in their affidavit.

“The matter was postponed to June 11, 2019 for trial commencement. On June 6, 2019, applicants obtained a copy of the untyped record of proceedings to enable them to file an application for review … as soon as the application for review was issued, applicants filed an urgent chamber application for stay of proceedings.

“Applicants, thus, seek an order for stay of their prosecution pending finalisation of the review proceedings in the High Court. Should the trial proceed, the application for review will be rendered academic should the application for review succeed.”

The former Makoni West MP and his co-accused are being represented by Mbizo, Muchadehama and Makoni.

Guest Column: Fr Oskar Wermter SJ

THE Soviet army rolled over Germany in 1945. My home province, in the extreme east of the country and a direct neighbour of Soviet territory, became Russian and Polish. 19th century nationalism and chauvinism had torn Europe apart.

As a small boy, three years old, I became a refugee, without a home, the youngest of five children, brought up by my widowed mother — my father lost in Adolf Hitler’s war against Russia, a country so vast, nobody had ever conquered it, neither Napoleon Bornaparte nor Adolf Hitler. This war, the Second World War, left us homeless, turned us into orphans, migrants seeking refuge on alien soil.

I grew up feeling a deep horror of any kind of war or warfare and armed violence. I observed American and British bombers dropping from the sky their lethal load of bombs, rockets and grenades. The city where we had landed after crossing borders from east to west consisted just of ruins and devastation. After three wars between France and Germany in less than 100 years, we did not want to see another war.

This city was rebuilt, and is now more wonderful than it had ever been. Let it not be bombed to smithereens again!

“No more war!”

Nationalist fanaticism was out, a new order, the European Union, was in. The common market and the economic union was supposed to bind European nations, indeed of the whole world together in the United Nations, and thus to make war impossible. The new leaders of France, Italy and even defeated Germany agreed: “No more war!”

Greedy, power-hungry fascists and anti-semites were no longer in power, but Christian leaders determined to bring back peace to their homelands.

I came to help build a young Church in Africa, and free society from racism and fratricidal violence. Nationalism and a people’s war were considered the answer to colonial oppression.

At the moment, I am back with my family, and meet old school friends and colleagues. It is a time of reflection and remembrance of the last 50 years, in Europe, as well as in Africa.

I am alarmed that the slogans: “No more war”, “No more nationalism and chauvinist selfishness” are beginning to fade away and lose the power to convince. The young generation has never known war. What was built in 50 years, a political and economic union of 28 European states, is no longer so attractive, the enthusiasm of my generation for it is gone. “Brexit” (Britain to make an exit) is threatening unity and constructive cooperation.

Extreme right-wingers shed hot tears and walk the streets in fascist anger to bring back nationalism and poisonous chauvinism, put up fences and walls again, only 30 years after the collapse of the infamous Berlin Wall.

New fascist parties in so many countries refuse entry to political and economic refugees. The “United States of Europe” seems now an unrealistic dream, more remote from reality than ever before. “Make America strong again. We need rearmament and more weapons” is the new slogan, and Russia, while free from Communist tyranny, is still far away from a new democratic order. They long for the old glory of the past which was achieved by endless wars and bloody conflicts.

Asian nations building up an ever bigger arsenal of nuclear weapons to threaten the rest of the world. Are we to invent even more sophisticated and more lethal weapons for Word War Three?

Whether it is the glory of the American Wild West, the superiority of American military technology or the sentimental longing for the return of British imperial glory, nationalism and fascism frighten me.

Nationalist propaganda, noisy and terrifying in so many parts of Europe just now, calls for the dismantling of the European Union in favour of national sovereignty and very selfish policies which undermine the achievement of peace over the last 50 years. It frightens me and spoils my holiday with my sisters and brothers. Our refugee past is always present in our minds, and we can never forget.

Where does this experience leave us in Zimbabwe, in southern Africa and on the continent as a whole? Can we learn something from the failures and political disasters of our neighbours north of the Equator and the Mediterranean Sea?

In four weeks’ time, I will be back in Zimbabwe. Friends and colleagues will ask: What have you brought us? Do I have a good message for them? Nation States obsessed with safeguarding the power of their political class without regard for the common good, and the welfare and prosperity of Africa as a whole, will soon be in violent conflict with each other again. National sovereignty is the idol which we worship, much to the detriment of “united nations and international unions”.

A country that does not respect the sovereignty of its neighbours will not be recognised as a sovereign State itself. If our leaders do not respect the citizens as sovereign owners of the land, and do not preserve their lives, as protected by the Constitution and bill of rights, the country they lead will not have its sovereignty respected and preserved, either.

The vision of African unity and good neighbourliness among nations promises a future full of hope. But nationalistic pride will destroy countries where there is much antagonism and strife between regions and parties. Brexit? No, we want the unity of a prosperous Europe. For us, more weapons systems, more soldiers, more military force will not serve the common good and give our children education and work. Where there is no determination to bring about reconciliation and peace, we cannot hope for workplaces for our children and an adequate income for their future families.

Our future does not lie in Europe, but in ourselves, and salvation will be found in our own Africa. I went to see families and friends. I was not trying to seek refuge in the old country. Neither do I believe that Europe or America are the fulfilment of our dreams.

Our skills and our learning, our intelligence and our creative ideas will transform Africa, not the prosperity found among aliens overseas. I came 50 years ago to bring a new spirit to this country which wants to stand on its own feet again in freedom. I have not given up my project. A “Brexit” closes a door, it does not open new ones.

A united Africa, and a Zimbabwe where we are good neighbours and share our troubles (and do not build walls and put up fences as symbols of mutual hostility), give us confidence, trust and courage.

Europe was devastated, millions having perished on the battle fields, during 100 years of war and bloodshed; peace and unity, for example, in the European Union, restored the old continent in 50 years, admired by the whole world and attracting immigrants from “failed States”.

I hope we can avoid a “Zimexit” and isolation. We should, instead continue reconstruction on the ruins of past wars and heal their wounds.

Fr Oskar Wermter is a social commentator. He writes here in his personal capacity.