Parliament questions ministry targets after reported achievements far exceed plans
By Staff Reporter
BULAWAYO — Parliament has questioned the credibility of performance targets set by the Ministry of Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development after it reported exceeding most fourth-quarter 2025 targets by wide margins.
The Portfolio Committee on Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development said the results could point to strong implementation, but the size of the variances raised concerns that targets were not set realistically.
The ministry reported training 48,263 women in entrepreneurship, technical and social skills against a fourth-quarter target of 15,000.
It also reported conducting 1,340 drug and substance abuse awareness campaigns against a target of 59, and holding 678 family cohesion dialogues against a target of 59.
The committee noted that the women’s skills-training target was exceeded by 322%.
The ministry said drug and substance abuse awareness and family cohesion programmes were introduced in its 2025 strategic plan and the initial targets were deliberately set at manageable levels to establish a baseline.
It said it had increased its 2026 targets to 5,000 drug and substance abuse awareness campaigns and 1,200 family cohesion dialogues.
The report said programmes reached beneficiaries in all 10 provinces. It recorded 6,839 people trained in sanitary-wear production, 2,648 trained in garment manufacturing, 42,641 micro, small and medium enterprise operators trained in business management, and 23,954 cooperative members trained in cooperative management.
The committee said the interventions could improve livelihoods, support self-employment and strengthen local economic development, but stressed the need for follow-up impact assessments to establish longer-term results.
It also noted that several targets were not achieved because of inadequate funding and delayed Treasury disbursements.
Affected areas included women’s community, SME and cooperative projects; plans for a safe market in Chinhoyi; gender equality and gender-based violence programmes; and construction work at Golden Vale and the National Training Centre for Rural Women.
Parliament has recommended that, from the 2026 financial year, the ministry set quarterly and annual targets using historical data and evidence-based methods that reflect actual implementation capacity.
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