Mudzikisi’s vision for the City of Masvingo

Kennedy Murwira

Incoming Masvingo-Kernen Association chairman, Pascal Mudzikisi, says he is raring to go and will leave no stone unturned in his quest to improve the lives of the people of Masvingo by creating employment through income generating activities.

Mudzikisi, who replaced Simon Chireshe at the helm of the association, said he is prepared to engage his counterparts in the Kernen-Masvingo Association in Germany to come in with assistance to kickstart the projects. He also said he will convince the City Council to allocate part of the land on one of its farms for the projects.

“The aim behind the projects is to remove our youths from the streets and keep them occupied in income generating projects. 

“I am looking at getting one hectare of land on council owned Standard Farm where we will embark on a poultry project. 

“I will personally convince our friends in Germany to provide us with funding for the roofing sheets and the diamond mesh wire for the fowl runs while we will mould the bricks ourselves on site.

“Poultry feeds and other requirements will be sourced locally and other members of the committee will be expected to play their part to make this project a success,” said Mudzikisi.

Mudzikisi added that by-products from the poultry project will be used as manure in a gardening project that will be expected to run side by side with the poultry project. He said he will personally ensure that products from the activities have a ready market in the city.

“There are fast food outlets that are operating within the city and some which are expected to open soon. We will convince them to give our youths the first right of refusal to supply them with live birds or alternatively poultry products.

‘If we fail to agree then we can always use the legal route by convincing the council to craft by-laws which allow these outlets to source for their products locally before resorting to other centres.

“If they fail to agree on prices we will ask them to come back to us so that we can convince our youths to put in place a pricing structure that is in line with other existing suppliers in other centres,” Mudzikisi said.

He said vegetables from the gardening project will be easily absorbed by local markets which do not enjoy the services of a ready supplier at the moment.

“I will visit stallholders at the markets, especially the Chitima Market, and convince them to buy their vegetable produce locally,” he said.

The identification process for the youths to participate in the projects, Mudzikisi said, will be done at ward level while some of the youths who spent their time on the streets selling airtime will also be targeted.news