The View | Economics lessons to be learned from Mugabe

I only met former President Robert Mugabe once. It was in Hong Kong with a small group of investors. The diminutive dictator walked up to the podium past a huge bemedalled man in full military dress, standing enveloped by an even huger pot plant.

The general left the pot plant for a moment to place Mugabe’s speech on the podium. The little tyrant took one look at it, rolled his eyes, turned the speech the right way up and commenced. He was just as effective in reversing the prospects of Zimbabwe’s economy.

Mugabe’s sole and selfish aim in being president was … to remain president. By paying off his supporters, and using the knobkerrie and the gun on everyone else, he lasted 37 years. He was a great advertisement for colonialism, which had at least some concern for the people under its administration.

God blessed Rhodesia with the world’s best climate and vast mineral resources. Rhodesia in the 1960s boasted huge earnings from arable crops, tobacco, and mining. A democratic leadership could have made it highly successful – the Switzerland of Africa.

When I left Zimbabwe in 1969, it was the breadbasket of Africa, now it is now a basket case, spending precious foreign currency to import food. The black population was poor but safe and not subject to overt racism. The churches ran the schools and despite the fact that much of the education budget does not reach the schools today, Zimbabwe has a literacy rate of 90 per cent. The people are lovely, kind and generous – or Mugabe would not have survived.