The most informative entry in Zimbabwe’s national budget is a blank space on page 217 – beside the label “capital expenditure” for secondary schools.

Just below is another blank for capital spending on primary schools. For good measure, the next page discloses that Zimbabwe’s rulers chose to spend nothing on equipping nurseries either.

Last year, Robert Mugabe and his ministers declined to invest a single penny on classrooms, desks, textbooks or any other capital assets for educating Zimbabwe’s 6 million children, out of a national budget equivalent to £3 billion. Mugabe did, however, spend £22 million on foreign travel and £260,000 on maintaining his official cars. Naturally, his palaces fared a great deal better than the country’s schools: capital spending on “state residences” was £250,000.