President Robert Mugabe was appointed interim vice-chair of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) this week, eliciting an amusing bout of self-congratulation from a glory-starved government and its faction-driven megaphones.
Milking this "remarkable diplomatic feat" for all it's worth, Foreign Affairs minister Simbarashe Simbanenduku Mumbengegwi waxed lyrical, hailing Mugabe for "bequeathing" Africa the "legacy" of industrialisation. Well, either Mumbengegwi knows a different definition of industrialisation than the rest of us or -- as I suspect -- he has not read the newly released 2016 Zimbabwe National Competitiveness Report.
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