The United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) inspectors arrived in the country three days ago to inspect Zimbabwe and Zambia’s progress in their preparation to host the 2013 general assembly.

As the three inspectors are checking on our preparedness, it is the time for national discipline, time for national commitment and time to ensure that we retain our right to host this prestigious event that can easily be snatched from our mouths by our detractors before August 2013.

As a nation we should understand that this chance to host 176 image building countries is rare and we might never have it again in 300 years when Africa becomes eligible to host the event.

At the moment it is our only chance to tell the world that we are far away from being the rogue state that our detractors have been portraying, albeit with unsubstantiated claims of poor governance, lack of accountability, lawlessness and a dearth of human rights.

We need to rally behind the bid by putting into place or mobilising not only resources but our best brains and our most committed illustrious sons and daughters to ensure that we host a memorable world mega event, without glitches.

None but ourselves and honestly none but ourselves should do the best for our country.

The hosting comes at a time when we are climbing out of or shedding off the tainted skin of our image that has been battered and bruised by a Western media blitz that painted us as the evil of this world.

The hosting comes at time when we have embarked on a long but arduous journey of economic recovery, in which tourism has been identified as one of the pillars of strength and revival for the country.

Indeed, the hosting comes at a time when we are putting in place the international marketing, development and promotion matrix of our national tourism brand, “Zimbabwe — A World of Wonders”, that is the rallying points of our national attractiveness.

The brand is itself, the face our nationhood and indeed, is itself the pride of what makes Zimbabwe one of the best tourist destinations in the world.

The Government and Treasury, in particular, must actively participate and show commitment to this national cause by removing bureaucratic processes to enable the free flow of funds required to implement various projects.

Our biggest undoing will be bureaucratic bungling that, so far, is rearing its ugly head despite the need for projects to take off quickly.

We risk being our worst enemies by not taking seriously our bureaucratic financial release processes.

We risk spoiling everything by embarking on projects that we fail to finish on time, so we would rather do a clever analysis of what we can do versus our ambitions then come up with a realistic and practical tabulation of what we can safely do with our limited resources.

This is better than making suicidal construction attempts like the so-called convention centre.

There is no one who doubts the beauty of Victoria Falls and the commitment of the Tourism and Hospitality Industry Ministry and the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority but there are still some grey areas when it comes to the commitment of other supporting acts.

This is our chance, so let us utilise it.