Zimbabwe: Mugabe lambasts 'lazy' ministers

Janet Shoko* [caption id="attachment_13474" align="alignleft" width="480"] ZIMBABWE'S PRESIDENT ROBERT MUGABE. PHOTO©REUTERS[/caption] Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe says he is fed up with his ministers because they are lazy and spend most of their time travelling abroad. The 90 year-old leader in power since 1980 has been accused of running down the once promising African country. The country's once vibrant economy is collapsing and Mugabe has often blamed it on a travel ban imposed on his inner circle by the European Union, the United States and other Western countries. However, in a rare admission President Mugabe on Tuesday said that lazy ministers had rendered his government's latest economic blue print – the Zimbabwe Agenda Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (ZimAsset) – useless. "Just now I am fed up with your too much travelling," he told ministers during a luncheon after officially opening a session of parliament. "Too much travelling, very little attention is being given to practical work." He said most policies were not being implemented because ministers were obsessed with travel and talk shows. "Zim-Asset should not remain just a name. Zim-Asset must be a practical engine," he said. "On paper we say yes we need to produce food. On paper we say we need to produce products and beneficiate them. "That we as an indigenous people must equip ourselves and sustain that development. "That is what the paper says, but what we say on paper is not put in practice. We must be practical people now, not just theorists." "Act, act and act more. We have a tendency to have debates. You say there is a meeting there president come and open this, ooh we have this issue now. "I have a string of invitations to meetings; I would want to be invited to see what is going on". Mugabe himself has been accused of spending too much time travelling instead of attending to the country's economic problems. He spends a lot of time in Asia where he regularly goes for treatment and month long holidays every year. During his absence, the Cabinet does not meet because Mugabe is the only person with authority to chair it. *Source theafricareport]]>