Zimbabwe plans $1 bn ‘Mugabe University’

HARARE: Zimbabwe’s cashstrapped government plans to build a $1 billion university named after 93-year-old President Robert Mugabe, the higher education minister said on Wednesday, a move that was quickly cricitised by the opposition as a waste of resources.

Jonathan Moyo, Higher and Tertiary Education Minister, said the Robert Gabriel Mugabe University would focus on science and technology and have an institute focusing on research and “transformative and revolutionary leadership.”

“Cabinet has approved a grant of $800 million towards the construction of the Robert Gabriel Mugabe University and a grant of $200 million towards the University Endowment Fund for research and innovation,” Moyo said. Mugabe and his wife Grace are the founding trustees of the university that would be outside the capital Harare.

The main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), criticising the plan, said Mugabe’s government should instead improve existing underfunded universities around the country. Students at state run universities and colleges struggle with lack of accommodation and crumbling infrastructure, while the government does not offer grants to help the universities.

With formal unemployment above 90 per cent, most graduates are forced to take informal jobs, mostly hawking goods on the streets or seeking employment in neighbouring countries, to pay for their studies. “This is populism that defies logic. It is meant to stroke Mugabe’s ego because we know this government is broke,” Obert Gutu, MDC spokesman said. built