{"id":146521,"date":"2015-08-26T10:26:58","date_gmt":"2015-08-26T10:26:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=146521"},"modified":"2015-08-26T10:27:44","modified_gmt":"2015-08-26T10:27:44","slug":"robert-mugabe-booed-in-zimbabwes-parliament-over-economic-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=146521","title":{"rendered":"Robert Mugabe booed in Zimbabwe’s parliament over economic crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"
Zimbabwe\u2019s veteran president Robert Mugabe was booed and heckled by opposition politicians over the deteriorating economy as he gave his state of the nation address to parliament on Tuesday.<\/div>\n
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Movement for Democratic Change parliamentarians questioned his economic policies, jeering as the 91-year-old delivered a policy speech which lasted less than half an hour.<\/div>\n
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He spoke as the UN confirmed earlier estimates that around 1.5 million Zimbabweans or 16% of the country\u2019s population will face hunger later this year and need food aid.<\/div>\n
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When Mugabe \u2013 who has been in power since Zimbabwe\u2019s independence from Britain in 1980 \u2013 outlined his government\u2019s plan to improve the economy, one lawmaker yelled at him to admit \u201cyou can\u2019t do much about it\u201d.<\/div>\n
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Mugabe presented a 10-point plan which included boosting agricultural growth, encouraging private sector investment and fighting graft.\u201cWhat about job creation?\u201d one opposition member shouted while another accused Mugabe\u2019s government of \u201ccorruption\u201d.<\/div>\n
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Others shouted \u201cif wishes were horses\u201d and \u201cyou have utterly failed\u201d.<\/p>\n

The economy of the southern African nation has been on a downward spiral for more than a decade with slow growth, low liquidity and high unemployment.Many companies have closed, downsized or relocated to neighbouring countries.
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The government has cut its growth forecasts for 2015 to 1.5% from 3.2%, mainly due to slow growth in the agricultural sector.Zimbabwe\u2019s harvest of the staple corn has shrunk by half due to erratic rains and abnormally high temperatures.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The country will need to import 700,000 tonnes of corn to feed those facing hunger in the coming months.Vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa has already appealed for cash from \u201cdevelopment agencies and the private sector\u201d.<\/div>\n
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The UN\u2019s World Food Program on Monday said 16% of the population \u201care projected to be food insecure at the peak of the 2015-16 lean season, the period following harvest when food is especially scarce\u201d.\u201c<\/div>\n
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This represents a 164% increase in food insecurity compared to the previous season,\u201d said the WFP.Amidst the heckling, Mugabe continued unfazed and read his speech through to the end.<\/div>\n
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His ZANU-PF party then burst into a song praising their leader while the opposition countered singing \u201cZANU-PF is rotten\u201d.<\/div>\n
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It is not the first time Mugabe has been jeered in parliament.<\/div>\n
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In August 2008, MDC deputies roundly booed him during a speech to show they did not recognise his legitimacy following a flawed presidential vote earlier that year.<\/div>\n
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–<\/div>\n
Source: The Guardian<\/div>\n
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Zimbabwe\u2019s veteran president Robert Mugabe was booed and heckled by opposition politicians over the deteriorating economy as he gave his state of the nation address to parliament on Tuesday. Movement for Democratic Change parliamentarians questioned his economic policies, jeering as the 91-year-old delivered a policy speech which lasted less than half an hour. He spoke […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":7020,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[38,14],"class_list":["post-146521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-palaver-newspaper","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=146521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=146521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=146521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=146521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}