By Rungano Dzikira

President Emmerson Mnangagwa has pledged Government’s commitment to devolution of power which he says will see the acceleration of economic growth in the country’s ten provinces.

Addressing State Provincial Ministers from the country’s ten provinces, at State House, this Monday, the President said the meeting was intended to accelerate the implementation of Devolution and Decentralization, according to the constitutional dictates.

“It is now time to decentralize power from Harare and allow provinces to economically empower themselves, as such Ministers of State are to identify resources in their respective provin  ces, to lend traction to decentralized and devolved developments envisaged by the Constitution,” he said.

“The Government prioritizes economics over politics, so we are saying let’s decentralize power from Harare and allow each province to benefit from their own resources.

For us to prosper we should leverage on what every province has for development in that region. We talking about devolution so that provinces fail on their own.”

His Excellency added that devolution of power would enable the country to realize its goal of achieving a middle class economy by 2030 given the reorganization and transfer of responsibilities and resources from the national Government, and a sound financial base for each province.

He also implored Ministers to keep up the fight against Covid-19 by raising community awareness on the virus adding that the pandemic had triggered a national urge to import-substitute and to strive towards universal access to health services.