KINGSTON, Jamaica — Opposition spokesperson on Youth, Sports, Gender Affairs, Entertainment and Culture, Olivia “Babsy” Grange, has said that government should demand an apology from Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe, for his remarks about drug and alcoholc abuse in Jamaica.

“I find Mr Mugabe’s statements alarming, to say the least, as he has been to Jamaica and is very much aware that those views are quite contrary to the facts,” Grange said said in a release issued today.

“It is startling that someone who has himself claimed that his country is a victim of imperceptions fed by the international media, should be using these misconceptions of the Jamaican society to describe our people, at a forum of students, intellectual and business and social leaders in his country,” Grange added.

She suggested that the Government of Jamaica seek a verbatim report of Mugabe’s statement, as well as a formal explanation of the reasons for his statement and the evidence to support it.

Mugabe has been quoted by the Zimbabwean press as stating that Jamaica was “a country of marijuana smokers, where women are now taking charge since men are always sloshed (drunk)”.

He was speaking to academics, dignitaries, business people and government officials from Zimbabwe and other African nations, at the opening of a regional three-day Expo in Harare, hosted by the University of Zimbabwe last Wednesday.

“In Jamaica they have freedom to smoke mbanje, varume vanogara vakadhakwa (men are always drunk) and universities are full of women. The men want to sing and do not go to colleges vamwe vanobva vamonwa musoro (some are dreadlocked). Let us not go there,” Mugabe was quoted as saying by at least one newspaper.

Like our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/jamaicaobserver

Follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/JamaicaObserver