Mugabe reaches bottom, keeps digging

Mugabe, speaking at a function to mark the launch of a report on Zimbabwe's progress towards meeting the U.N.'s Millennium Development Goals by 2015, defended his country’s violent land reforms saying the reforms were the key to achieving development goals set by the United Nations.

“The ongoing land reforms are expected to restore Zimbabwe's pride as the breadbasket of the ... region,” Mugabe said.

Did he mean basket case?

As I mentioned earlier, it was anybody’s guess what Mugabe would invent to fatten up his progress report short of typing it in double space, but to mention his botched land grab as progress was really shameless.

The truth is that Mugabe never intended to carry out a long overdue land reform. If he had really wanted an equitable, productive, viable land redistribution process he would have done it earlier, legally and properly, benefiting from the UK’s promise to pay for compensation. But he set it up for political reasons as a racist revenge, pretending to forget that many had acquired their properties under his regime, perfectly legally. In reality Mugabe is just bent on nationalizing all resources, and redistributing it as bribes among his cronies to stay in power.

In fact, the move to nationalize all land in Zimbabwe is controversial among economists. While a system of state ownership combined with lease contract is common throughout the African continent, this is often seen as a major problem for economic development. Unclear ownership status hinders investments on the land as leasers are discouraged from investing and banks are discouraged from giving credits, several economists hold. In most of Africa, there is therefore a tendency towards privatising the land so as to encourage investments and development.

Despite the dismal results of his actions, Mugabe persists, as a real madman would:

State Security Minister Didymus Mutasa, who doubles as land reform chief, on Tuesday said the government would move to take remaining land from white farmers for its controversial fast-track resettlement programme, which analysts say has largely benefited Mugabe’s cronies.

In a rare admission, tempered by his usual finger pointing and lies, Mugabe said:

“Eradication of extreme poverty and hunger remains a major challenge for Zimbabwe and the 2003 poverty assessment study revealed that total consumption poverty increased to 63 per cent from 42 per cent in 1995,”

It should be noted that consumption poverty -- which looks at consumption rather than income -- is one way of defining poverty. Levels of abject poverty are estimated to be a lot higher at around 80 per cent of the country's 11.6 million people.

Very smart. He then quickly shifted the blame from himself for the tragedy that Zimbabwe has become:

But Mugabe on Thursday denied mismanaging the economy blaming the crisis on drought and “hostile responses of the British and American governments to our land redistribution programme.”

He must have been relieved by the news of IMF’s six months reprieve to Zimbabwe; unfortunately - and unless he disappears - in six months the situation will be much, much worse.

Zimbabwe, Mugabe