MDC-T| The Group of Twenty (also known as the G-20) is an international forum for the governments and central bank governors from 20 major economies of the world. Zimbabwe is not amongst the 20 major economies of the world and as such, we are not part of the G-20.
The G-20 include 19 individual countries that are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, United Kingdom and the United States of America; along with the European Union (EU). The G-20 represents 85% of the global economy. The tenth annual meeting of the G-20 heads of government is currently being held in the resort city of Antalya in Turkey.
Robert Mugabe and his huge delegation are also in Antalya supposedly to attend the G-20 in his capacity as the chairman of the African Union (AU). It is actually a gross embarrassment that Zimbabwe, currently ranked amongst the twenty poorest countries in the world, is also part and parcel of the ongoing G-20 summit in Turkey.
The official explanation given by the Zanu PF regime for Robert Mugabe’s attendance at the summit is that he is doing so in his capacity as the chairman of the AU. In fact, this is a very disgraceful and nebulous excuse for Mugabe to attend the G-20 summit. Accordingly, he is just at the fringes of the summit for the simple reason that Zimbabwe is not part of 20 major economies of the world. Mugabe is not in any way involved in the actual business of the discussions being conducted by the visiting heads of government. Effectively, he is just a bystander.
It therefore boggles the mind why Robert Mugabe and his wife, accompanied by a huge entourage of not less than 60 people, are in Antalya purportedly to attend the tenth annual meeting of the G-20.
Mugabe and his huge delegation had to charter an Air Zimbabwe jet to travel to Turkey notwithstandingthat the national economy is presently in a comatose state and the government is struggling to pay salaries and bonuses for civil servants. Mugabe cannot be purporting to be representing Africa at the G-20 meeting because only one African country is a member of the G-20 and that country is South Africa. President Jacob Zuma of South Africa is representing his country at the Antalya meeting.
Robert Mugabe has a penchant for costly foreign travel. In 2015 alone, he has embarked on no less than 40 foreign excursions at the expense of the national treasury that is virtually bankrupt. Even his annual leave and Christmas holidays are routinely spent in faraway places in the Far East. Instead of promoting local tourism by spending his holidays in Victoria Falls, Kariba or the Eastern Highlands, Robert Mugabe almost invariably travels to Malaysia, Singapore or Hong Kong for his annual holidays; at huge expense to the struggling exchequer.
As the MDC, we call upon Robert Mugabe to learn to cut his cloth according to his size. Because of the ruinous economic policies adopted by his regime over the years; coupled with rampant corruption and gross mismanagement, Zimbabwe has been reduced from being the bread basket of Southern Africa to becoming a basket case in a very short period of 35 years. Mugabe should be ashamed of the damage that has been brought upon the economy of Zimbabwe as a direct result of decades of his misrule.
To date, more than 80% of Zimbabweans are living in abject poverty and penury thanks to Robert Mugabe’s misrule and mismanagement. At least 5 million Zimbabweans have escaped to the Diaspora as economic refugees; in the past 15 years alone. Such has been the legacy of Robert Mugabe’s record of misrule, mismanagement and unmitigated corruption that to date, at least 2 million Zimbabweans are facing serious food shortages mainly because the agricultural sector has been decimated by a violent and ill – planned so – called land reform program.
It is thus a total shame and a serious national embarrassment that Robert Mugabe saw it fit to travel to Antalya,Turkey to attend the G-20 meeting.
Obert Chaurura Gutu
MDC National Spokesperson