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President Robert Mugabe reportedly “shocked” thousands of Zimbabweans gathered for independence celebrations when he claimed that the country’s economy was on the road to recovery, NewsDay reports.
Mugabe, 92, said that his government had “managed to turn around the economy and created jobs for the impoverished citizens”.
The veteran leader also said that his government was doing everything it could to “translate political independence into meaningfulness, by attending to the sociology-economic needs” of Zimbabweans.
Mugabe’s remarks irked opposition parties who lambasted the leader, saying that he was out of touch with reality on the ground.
Critics accused the nonagenarian of being insincere, and of being the main architecture of the country’s problems, as his rule was based on corruption and intolerance New Zimbabwe said.
“This is like the devil quoting the bible. He may pontificate as much as he wants but no sane people would take him seriously,” secretary general of the People’s Democratic Party(PDP), Godern Moyo, was quoted as saying.
Zimbabwe has suffered years of economic collapse and mass emigration during an era marked by intolerance of dissent, vote rigging and accusations of human rights abuses.
According to reports, the country’s economy entered a tailspin after the launch of controversial land reforms 16 years ago.
By 2008, inflation had officially peaked at 231 million percent, before the government stopped counting.
In March, Fin24 reported that Zimbabwean consumers were under a severe strain and had to be cushioned by the continuous reduction of retail prices.
The report indicated that a number of factors, among them, company closures, delayed payment salaries in both private and government sectors as well as retrenchments, were causing the strain.
