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Vandudzai Zirebwa Buy Zimbabwe
Events in the arts industry for the past two weeks were very interesting for the Buy Zimbabwe cause. Delta Beverages held the now annual Lion Larger festival, where, as has become the norm, they had a foreign artist from Jamaica as the expected headlining act.
As has happened time and again when international acts are invited to the country, the artiste was a no show. Apparently his excuse for being a not turning up was that the Jamaican government had advised artistes not to perform in Africa for fear of Ebola, this in spite of the fact that there is not a single reported case in Zimbabwe.

If anything, Zimbabwe is one of the countries whose preparedness against the disease is impressive. In fact, the country is even more prepared than most Western countries and is on high alert, with the Government partnering private sector in efforts to detect the disease early and preaching the message of how to prevent it.

Not only was the turn-down by the international artiste embarrassing, it also brought bad publicity for the country. Now, this could have been avoided if the organisers had only thought of having a local artiste as the headliner. Fortunately, Delta quickly made the decision to make our very own Winky D the top act, and he carried the day. He surely proved the doubting Thomases out there wrong.

While South African outfit Uhuru also performed, it failed to outshine the local artistes despite its hit songs. It was Tocky Vibes, Jah Prayzah and of course the main man Winky D who stole the show. The morale of the story is that Zimbabweans should believe in themselves.

It is not right to persistently underestimate our abilities and always set our sights on international artists to show us a good time. Time and again these international artistes have put on dismal shows, much to the disappointment of fans, and have to be bailed out by local performers. So surely by now we should be confident and proud of our abilities as a nation.

Incidentally, one of the private schools in Harare, Eaglesvale, had a speech night not long after the Lion Larger festival. On that day, it was revealed that a group of five students from the school had participated in the Technovation Awards, which are scientific awards, and came second in Africa.

This qualified them for the world competitions, where they emerged third. Our very own young Zimbabweans, flying the flag high on such a platform. Now that is something to be proud of. What this says is that, if they fully apply themselves, Zimbabweans can be among the best in any discipline not only in Africa, but in the world.

So, rather than spending our money on imports, we should be using the same cash in developing local skills and talent. Statistics indicate that the $10 billion dollar import deficit from dollarisation in 2012 to September 2014 has surpassed the national debt accrued over the past 34 years.

Compared to the last year’s statistics when our import bill was close to $3 billion, we are thus far about $1 billion under that figure. This demonstrates that we are well to clearing our Balance of Payment and we need to double efforts to clear the deficit. For that to happen, we have to stimulate production.

In pursuit of improved production, Buy Zimbabwe is this year holding the Buy Zimbabwe Week in Bulawayo from the 1st to the 7th of November 2014. The main message will be “Together we can revive Bulawayo”. We are also saying, as Zimbabweans, we cannot have our cake and eat it too. We have to make some sacrifices to promote our own industry and create our own jobs.

The Deputy Minister of Industry and Commerce Chiratidzo Mabuwa aptly summarized this when she said you can’t be commit suicide and be the same person to file for murder. You have to choose a side – support local products and our country’s development, or support imports and export our wealth.

It is that simple. The local artistes in Zimbabwe have shown that we can achieve anything that we set our minds to. Now it is time for us to follow suit.

Until next time, God bless.

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