(Last Updated on February 27, 2013 by Editor)
ZIMBABWE – VISITING Ras Al Khaimah ruler Sheikh Saud Bin Saqr Al Qasimi has expressed interest in pursuing various business opportunities here.
He is in Zimbabwe on a four-day State visit. The Sheikh yesterday visited the National Heroes’ Acre, Grace Mugabe’s Alfa Omega Dairy Farm in Mazowe and Boka Tobacco Auction Floors.
He was accompanied by Foreign Affairs Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi and his Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development counterpart Joseph Made. Sheikh Saud said there were plenty business opportunities in Zimbabwe which his country was considering to pursue.
He praised the First Lady Grace Mugabe’s work at her children’s home. “I am very impressed by what I saw. I saw the care she is giving to the little children she has adopted. I saw they are always smiling,” he said.
Sheikh Saud said Alpha Omega Dairy was a world class dairy. He said Zimbabwe had potential to do better. The First Lady said she intended to build a hospital at the children’s home should resources permit.
“I do not like to call this children’s home an orphanage. The intention is to bring children who are disadvantaged and those who have been abandoned by their mothers to have a place to call home. Funds permitting, we want to have a hospital.”
Grace Mugabe said in the long run, she wanted to build a university in Mazowe as part of the project. She said it was a challenge to develop the project as it relied mostly on donations.
“We have a primary school here and it is not only for our children here. We will also accommodate children from outside, but they will have to pay. This will enable us to run and sustain our operations, including provision of food, clothing and paying teachers. “We plan to have a university in the same area. The governor has given us some more land for our project,” she said.
Grace said human beings were equal and it was bad to ill-treat orphans.
At Boka Tobacco Auction Floors, Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board chairperson Mrs Monica Chinamasa said Zimbabwe had great potential, especially in the agricultural sector.
She, however, said efforts to develop the sector were being impeded by sanctions imposed by the West. “We can do much more in the this sector but our country is under sanctions,” said Mrs Chinamasa.
She said Zimbabwe fought the liberation struggle to reclaim its land from British colonialists.