Zimbabwe now poorest country in the world, survey
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A GLOBAL business magazine has ranked Zimbabwe one of the two poorest countries in the world in a damning verdict of President Robert Mugabe’s 35-year-rule.
On taking over power at independence in 1980, Mugabe was told by President Samora Machel of Mozambique and President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania that; “You have the jewel of Africa in your hands.”
“Now look after it,” Nyerere and Samora added.
35 years later, Mugabe now in the twilight of his career, has succeeded in disappointing the late liberation luminaries.
The “jewel” is “ruined, dishonoured, disgraced”, said writer Doris Lessing.
The country, a former net food exporter, is perennially hungry; formal industry has all but collapsed and unemployment is around 90 percent - forcing more than a million citizens to resort to vending on the streets.
Confirming Zimbabwe’s precipitous fall from grace, Global Finance magazine ranked the country second bottom of its table of the world’s poorest countries.
The magazine used data from the IMF to rank the world’s countries according to their GDP per capita.
Zim now poorest country in the world
