He denied that the country was a fragile state.
“We have over 14 universities and our literacy rate is over 90 [%] – the highest in Africa,” he said, adding that the economy was improving.
Zimbabwe has been struggling to pay its civil servants recently and is ranked 24th on the UNDP’s Human Development Index for Africa.
“We have more resources, perhaps more than the average country in the world.” Mr Mugabe said, during a panel discussion on fragile states at the World Economic Forum on Africa in South Africa’s costal city of Durban.
“We have a bumper harvest, maize, tobacco, and other crops. We are not a poor country,” Mr Mugabe added, while acknowledging that Zimbabwe had problems.
Last year, more than four million people were in need of food aid in Zimbabwe after rains failed. The country was once known as the breadbasket of southern Africa.
The opposition accuses Mr Mugabe, who has ruled since independence in 1980, of ruining the economy.
Zimbabwe has faced a severe cash shortage since last year and has introduced so-called bond notes as a substitute for the US dollar, the main currency people use.
Hyperinflation forced the government to abandon the Zimbabwean dollar in 2009.
After Mr Mugabe came to power in 1980, he was widely praised for improving access to education in the country and in the 1990s, it did have among the highest literacy rates in Africa.
However, schools have also been affected by the country’s economic problems and rates have now dropped back.
African countries with highest adult literacy rates | ||
---|---|---|
Rank | Country | Literacy rate |
1 | Seychelles | 95.3% |
2 | Equatorial Guinea | 95.2% |
3 | South Africa | 94.6% |
4 | Sao Tome and Principe | 91.7% |
5 | Libya | 91.4% |
6 | Namibia | 90.8% |
7 | Mauritius | 90.6% |
8 | Cape Verde | 88.5% |
9 | Botswana | 88.2% |
10 | Swaziland | 87.5% |
11 | Zimbabwe | 86.9% |
Source: | World Bank (2015) |
What a delusional man he is. Mugabe is out of touch with Zimbabwe. He never ventures out into the Zimbabwe we see every day. He never sees the decay, filth and disrepair the average Zimbabwean see’s and lives. He lives in a mansion, is driven around in a limo at high speed with no chance to see all the damage he did. He travels overseas for shopping and health care. Which Zimbabwe is he talking about? Maybe he was reading notes from 1980 when he inherited a developed country from Smith. Samora Machel advised Mugabe to look after Zimbabwe, as he described the newly Independent Zimbabwe as, “the Jewel of Africa”.
So developed it accepts livestock for school fees . bob hurry up and die you old prick !