Harare - In a bid to lure the elusive youth vote in Zimbabwe, the ruling Zanu PF party has allegedly made available a total of 1 300 hectares of land in Bulawayo and Harare for residential stands for youths in the party structures.
Zanu PF Youth League Deputy Secretary, Kudzai Chipanga, revealed to thousands of party supporters from across the country, who gathered at their Headquarters in Harare Wednesday for a meeting, that the Bulawayo Metropolitan province had been given 300 hectares of land while Harare Metropolitan Province received 1000 hectares.
Harare is Zimbabwe's capital city while Bulawayo is the country's second largest city. “We are happy to say that President Mugabe has started responding to our request for residential stands. We want to thank the President because he gave an order to the Minister of Local Government, Cde Kasukuwere to dish out stands and we speak, youth in Bulawayo got 300 hectares of land at Imvuchwa Farm and graders are already making roads and we expect that in six months' time the land will be ready for occupation.
In Harare President Mugabe gave us 1000 hectares of land for residential purposes,” Chipanga said.
He said the stands for Harare were in Chishawasha (300 hectares), Harare South (500 hectares), and Norton (200 hectares).
The youth leader made it categorically clear that only Zanu PF youths would benefit from the empowerment programmes, saying they would soon be moving in to allocate artisanal mining licences to party youths, who he said had the right to extract the country's minerals without harassment from law enforcement agents.
“Distribution will be done at the ward and cell levels under the supervision of cell chairpersons. If you have not been attending Zanu PF meetings in your area, beware of poverty, you will not get anything,” he said.
Chipanga said the Urban Development Corporation (UDCORP) was in the process of developing maps for the stands in Norton and Harare South while those in Chishawasha had already been pegged.
“This is responding to the needs of the people and we are expecting more land because our wish is to get to 2018 elections with every youth having keys to his own house. We can't be a ruling party of lodgers,” he said.
The Zanu PF Youth leader said they were expecting the Minister of Mines and others line ministers to give them feed-back on the regularization of artisanal mines so that the youths could also benefit.
He said some Zanu PF youths would also be employed in the Harare-Chirundu Highway dualisation project, vowing that only ruling party youths should benefit.
Chipanga said youths wishing to benefit from empowerment projects should join the former liberation war movement and not stay in opposition politics where there was “poverty”. He attacked those behind the #Tajamuka pressure group, saying they were misguided youths, adding that the church must concentrate on praying for the country and not join mainstream politics.
“Those who are saying Tajamuka are trying to deflate our ball when we are saying we should be scoring the ball. They are minnows in this game; we started in 1980 and liberated this country, we did it in 2000 and we got our land back and now we have done it again and our youths have got stands,” he said.
African News Agency