Mangaliso Ndlovu: Can Zimbabwe avert environmental disaster?
The Interview
BBC
4.3 • 538 Ratings
🗓️ 25 November 2019
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Zimbabwe is wrestling with economic crisis, endemic corruption and prolonged drought. Crops have failed, hydro-power is down, taps have run dry. Also at risk is the country's wildlife population – animals and people are now in a desperate competition for resources. Mangaliso Ndlovu is Zimbabwe's Environment minister. Does his government have a plan to avert environmental disaster?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to a podcast from the BBC World Service. This is Hard Talk with me, Stephen Sacker. |
| 0:06.8 | Thanks for downloading this edition of the program. I do hope you enjoy it. |
| 0:10.9 | My guest today is regarded as one of the rising stars in Zimbabwe's post-Robitmogabi political arena. |
| 0:19.9 | Mangaliso and Lovu rose quickly through the ranks of the ruling party Zanu P.F. |
| 0:25.5 | And was appointed Minister of Industry and Commerce by President Emerson Monongagua, |
| 0:30.6 | after his controversial election victory in 2018. |
| 0:34.8 | Last summer, And Lovu was moved to the Environment Ministry, a move which puts him at the heart of |
| 0:40.8 | government efforts to cope with the effects of a drought, which threatens to do catastrophic harm to |
| 0:47.0 | Zimbabwe's human population and its rich, diverse wildlife. But the country's politics is |
| 0:54.0 | disfigured by rampant corruption and mismanagement as well. |
| 0:58.2 | It's dangerously ill-equipped to deal with a challenge which has already had huge impacts on food |
| 1:04.0 | supply, electricity and drinking water. So does the government have a plan to avert disaster? Well, Mangaliso and Lovu joins me now. Welcome to Hard Talk. |
| 1:16.6 | Thank you. Thank you for having me. And welcome to Zimbabwe. Thank you very much. Let me begin this interview by quoting some words from |
| 1:23.9 | President Manangagua at the time of his inauguration. He said, we are going to grow, modernize and mechanize our economy. |
| 1:31.1 | We will transform our people into middle-income citizens. |
| 1:36.9 | The reality is very, very different. |
| 1:40.7 | What's gone wrong? |
| 1:41.4 | There are always silent features in certain statements, in that he never said it will be easy. |
| 1:48.0 | He did not at any point underestimate the magnitude of the work that lies ahead. |
| 1:55.0 | So we are quite confident that the journey we have traveled so far and the journey we still are to travel is quite promising. |
| 2:03.6 | But if we talk, if I may minister, if we talk of direction of travel, you're heading in the wrong direction. |
| 2:09.6 | Your own government, in a document earlier this year, revealed that seven and a half millions Zimbabweans are going to require emergency food aid between |
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