Taurai Kandishaya, a candidate for the Epworth North Constituency in ZANU PF, has backed President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s pledge to create two million jobs, asserting that the ruling party has already surpassed the goal.
Kandishaya asserted during a speech at a political discussion hosted by Media Alliance of Zimbabwe and Tell Zimbabwe that the initiatives carried out by Mnangagwa’s administration over the previous five years had given 2.7 million people jobs.
He provided many instances of government initiatives that he said had produced jobs, including the purchase of 800 buses from Belarus, road building, and the development of the Robert Mugabe Airport.
He stated:
The government bought 800 buses from Belarus, one bus requires a driver and a conductor that is 1600 jobs created.
More so, these buses are manned by inspectors, that is one inspector plus an assistant for every 10 buses. There were also mechanics who were hired to repair these buses so that is even more jobs.
We are also constructing Mbire road, we had 210 people employed when we were building the Beitbridge road.
There is also a Mhanize steel plant, there are also 225 houses that were built in Beitbridge and if you have the know-how of construction you would know that when building a house there is the actual builder, carpenter, a surveyor and an engineer.
We also managed to create employment for our teachers who we sent to Rwanda. So if you look at all these projects you will see that there has been employment all over.
If you look at the Robert Mugabe airport expansion, if there used to be 10 employees now that number has gone to more than 100 because of the expansion. If you have time we could sit down and I will show you that we created 2,7 million jobs.
ZANU PF has been accused of failing to deliver on pre-election promises before. In 2013, the party promised to create 2.2 million jobs, which critics say it failed to deliver. However, ZANU PF claims it exceeded the target. Former Highfield West MP and ZANU PF member, Psychology Maziwisa, claimed in 2017 that the party did not promise to create 2.2 million formal jobs. He argued that the promise referred to both formal and informal jobs. Maziwisa stated that the party had created over 3 million jobs, including formal jobs. Despite this claim, Zimbabwe’s unemployment rate remains high, with over 2.8 million people of working age currently unemployed. The issue of job creation is a major concern for many Zimbabweans, especially in the run-up to elections.
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