Second Secretary and Vice President, Mai Joice Mujuru,

National Chairman, Comrade John Nkomo,

Secretary for Administration, Comrade Didymus Mutasa,

Members of the Politburo and Central Committee,

Comrade Delegates.

Greetings to you all members of the National Consultative Assembly. Our last meeting was in December, last year, under the auspices of the epoch-making Fourth National People’s Congress. It was that Congress that took the giant step of reaffirming our Party’s support for progressive gender policies, indeed, our belief in equal opportunities for all. The subsequent election of Vice President Mai Joice Mujuru and the parliamentary constituencies reserved for the Party’s women candidates, testify to this commitment.

Our Congress also raised a number of assignments for consideration by the Party and Government. We remain seized with the agreed tasks to this day, among them, the need to ensure the availability of basic commodities, such as food, water, electricity, fuel and building materials, while simultaneously continuing attempts to strengthen our regulatory framework for price adjustments. We are also continuously investigating viable prices for farming and other productive sectors. Congress also revisited the matter of timeous supply of farming inputs, especially seed and fertiliser, in order to give a further fillip to our agricultural and economic turnaround.

Our Fourth National People’s Congress became the principal preparatory organ for the March 2005 parliamentary elections. It encouraged a broadening of the playing field in order to allow all qualified candidates wishing to participate in our Party primary elections to do so. Congress emphasised the paramountcy of unity and discipline in the Party. Indeed, this uncompromising and principled stand saw some comrades, who had temporarily gone astray, returning to the Party fold, and joining in supporting the official Party candidates for the Election.

Above all, it was Congress that buttressed the call for a violence-free election. Today, we proudly reflect on the peaceful campaigns that took place, and which led to peaceful voting and the quiet aftermath. Congratulations to you all on this great achievement but mainly on our thunderous election victory. The people spoke in clear and unequivocal tones; ZANU (P.F.) for the people, the people for ZANU (P.F.)! Up to 50 countries, regional and international organisations agreed that the poll was an expression of the free will of the people. Only Britain and her angry racist kith and kin predictably tried to dispute the outcome. And just last weekend, the people of Mudzi East gave us yet another resounding victory in the by-election that was held there, this being the icing on several victories we have also registered in recent local government elections.

The doubters should take note that our Party, ZANU (PF), is the People’s Party, built and nourished by a commitment to serving the people. The prevaricators must know that our people will never sell their sovereignty, and so they remain firmly behind the only party that is faithful to this ideal. The fake masters of democracy should also remember that it was our people’s struggle that brought us democracy and their struggle that has kept it alive. The prophets of doom must now know that we are masters of our destiny, and Zimbabwe will never be a colony again.

Yesterday, at the meeting of the Central Committee, I made reference to the Clean-up Operation now under way. Government’s Operation Murambatsvina and Restore Order is a reconstruction programme intended to weed out hideouts of crime and grime, and filthy stalls, and encourage the construction of orderly, planned and tidy residential and business structures in their place. Predictably, the clean-up operation has excited our chief detractors, Britain, America and others of like-mind, who have been quick to use their willing tools, the BBC and CNN, to accuse us of human rights violations. Locally, their stooges, the narrow-minded so-called Broad Alliance recently but unsuccessfully attempted a demonstration to protest the clean-up exercise. Their crocodile tears will not deter us from carrying out the necessary action to rid ourselves of malpractices that have caused hardships to our people through the illegal trade in essential commodities like sugar, soap, mealie meal, fuel, foreign currency and clothing items.

A properly planned programme of re-construction and relocation is now underway. Through Inter-Ministerial Committees, Government is mobilizing available construction capabilities in order to quicken the programme’s pace. We have not sought to dispossess nor to disempower our people. We simply believe that their income-generating projects and their residential structures should conform to local government by-laws, in order to foster orderly and healthy growth and development.

Government being aware of the hardships that have befallen our rural people is actively engaged in a number of efforts to alleviate their suffering. Besides providing drought relief food, Government is anxious to see an extensive and intensive irrigation development programme that will cushion the country in times of drought. Because of the severity of the increasingly frequent dry seasons, there is a definite need to fully exploit our irrigation potential and, in this regard, I wish to challenge our non-state actors to share in this urgent national undertaking that can yield great benefits to our country.

Work on enhanced irrigation output should, however, not disable our preparations for the usual agricultural season. As resolved by Congress in December, there is need to ensure that inputs of seed and fertiliser are made available on time while our nascent mechanisation programmes should benefit as many farmers as possible. Increased agricultural production should be our common goal so we are able to meet national requirements as well as earn much-needed foreign currency.

Comrades, besides attending to socio-economic matters, our leadership has been undertaking Party restructuring in the Midlands, Matabeleland North, Bulawayo, Manicaland, Masvingo and Mashonaland West, and will go on until all provinces are covered. Weak leadership structures, failure to perform given tasks, and factionalism, are some of the common problems the Party must address. Personal ambitions should always be subordinated to the collective interest of the Party.

As I welcome you once more to this meeting, it is my hope that our deliberations will proceed smoothly and become fruitful to the Party.

Pamberi nekubatana!

Phambili lokubambana!

Long Live Our Unity!

I thank you.