Bruce Ndlovu, Sunday Life Reporters
A GALA featuring some of the country’s best musicians will bring down the curtain on this year’s Independence Day celebrations, which will be held in Bulawayo for the first time since the country attained freedom from colonial rule.
On 18 April, Bulawayo will become the first city after the capital to host the celebrations, with Barbourfields Stadium set to host the festivities which this year will run under the theme “Zimbabwe at 42: Leaving no one behind”.
The theme dovetails with the Second Republic’s drive towards the promotion of national unity, devolution and decentralisation.
President Mnangagwa will officiate at the proceedings, which will include a football match between the country’s two biggest teams Highlanders and Dynamos.
Speaking in Bulawayo on Thursday, head of the inter-ministerial committee overseeing the event, Local Government and Public Works Minister July Moyo said the music extravaganza would feature artistes from Bulawayo and elsewhere around the country, as the event was national in its nature.
The gala will follow the football match which will be watched by fans both inside and outside the stadium, account of the size of BF.
“We are making arrangements so that we can have giant screens outside and around Barbourfields Stadium so that we can put out tents and others can watch from these monitors and that will also take place during the football match itself because Barbourfields Stadium is too small for these celebrations.
“Later on, that day on the 18th, there will be a gala and artistes have been lined up, both artistes who are local and who are national because this is a national celebration.
The gala will start at 7 o’clock that evening and we are going to make sure that it is properly monitored for those that are attending or those that are watching from outside Bulawayo or in their homes in Bulawayo,” he said.
Minister Moyo said they were happy to bring the celebrations to Bulawayo after the previous two editions were cancelled due to Covid-19.
“So, we are excited that this is the first time that the independence celebrations of this country are going to be held outside Harare.
We were supposed to do this in 2020 but Covid-19 denied us. We were supposed to do this in 2021, because Cabinet had affirmed that the celebrations must happen in Bulawayo but Covid-19 was still very prevalent and this year, we hope that those Covid-19 figures will not betray us,” he said.
