First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa said that the collapse of the manufacturing industry in the country and the high rate of unemployment were caused by sanctions and Zimbabweans should pray hard for their removal.
Zimbabwe has been under sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union since it expropriated farms from white farmers for redistribution to landless blacks in the early 2000s.
Addressing delegates at a drugs and gender sensitisation conference for men drawn from Harare and Chitungwiza at the Chitungwiza Aquatic Complex on Tuesday, Mnangagwa said:
We are a developing country. We are under sanctions and then COVID-19 came and some companies closed because of the pandemic.
What wrong did we do for us to have sanctions? We need to pray hard for them to be removed to be able to have exports and credit lines. No one would want to invest in a nation under sanctions.
It’s just a matter of time. Let us keep on praying for our country. One day God will intervene.
Let us not hate our nation. Let us work for it. Let us find what we can do to take it forward.
If we continue using hate speech we will speak negatively in a positive country.
You end up hating your neighbour, yourself and committing suicide.
Mnangagwa used the conference to launch various economic empowerment initiatives to support women through her Angel of Hope Foundation.
She warned police officers against involvement in the selling of drugs and protecting drug lords.
Speaking at the conference, Chief Chikwaka, born Murambiwa Witness Bungu, castigated men who sexually abuse the girl child.