Wednesday 29 June 2016

By renewing funding to Zanu PF Paris Club and IMF ARE helping regime's no-regime-change agenda. By Wilbert Mukori

We in the Zimbabwe Social Democrats call on the Paris Club, IMF, WB and all the other Financial Institutions and governments all over the world, particularly the Chinese, to stop extending financial assistances to the Zimbabwe government until President Mugabe has implemented meaningful democratic reforms.
 
The Zimbabwe is facing a serious economic meltdown, unemployment has soared to 90% and government is failing to pay its workers let alone pay for other necessities like consumables for hospitals and schools. The economic situation is clearly unsustainable.
 
It should be noted that this situation is of government’s own making following decades of gross mismanagement, corruption and lawlessness that have destroyed the country’s robust and promising economy it inherited at independence in 1980. President Mugabe’s regime borrow heavily during the first twenty years of our independence to fund its reckless spending and yet had very little to show for it.
 
The country’s debt ballooned to $10 billion and only stopped growing when the international financial institutions like the Paris Club, IMF, WB and individual nations in government to government funding stopped granting the Zimbabwe government more financial assistance because Harare was failing to service its existing debts.
 
There is increasing talk of IMF, WB and Paris Club renewing financial assistance to the Zimbabwe government. Tomorrow, 30 June 2013 a Zimbabwe government team led by Minister of Finance, Right Honourable Patrick Chimanasa, will be attent a Paris Club Conference in France to discuss the details of re-engagement.
 
We believe the Paris Club, IMF, WB and all the other key players are asking the Zimbabwe government to pay off all the outstanding interest changes on the existing debt, a sum of $1.8 billion. As noted above, the Zimbabwe government is failing to pay civil servant wages and so will never raise the $1.8 billion from its own sources. The regime is set to borrow the $1.8 billion so it can be allowed to borrow even more to pay for its bloated recurrent expenditure.
 
There is no evidence on the ground to suggest the Zanu PF government has abandoned is reckless spending, mismanagement and corruption of yesteryears that landed the nation in this financial and economic crisis.
 
The is no evodence of the Paris Club, IMF, etc., demanding an undertaking by this Zanu PF to carry out meaningful economic reforms to ensure the renewed financial assistance is used well and not end up increasing the national debt with nothing to show for it as before. If the Paris Club was to demand an end to corruption, for example, the country would be able to pay off its entire $10 billion debt straight away. President Mugabe admitted in March that $15 billion of Marange diamond wealth had been looted!
 
We in the Zimbabwe Social Democrats believe the only sure way to deliver meaningful economic recovery is by ensuring Zimbabwe has a competent government that can be trusted to tackle the economic problems of mismnagement and corruption that are killing the Zimbabwe economy. The only sure way to get a competent government is by ensuring the country has free, fair and credible elections.
 
During the 2008 to 2013 GNU, Zimbabwe had the political opportunity to ensure the next elections are free and fair, all the MDC party led by Morgan Tsvangirai had to do was implement the agreed democratic reforms. Sadly, after five years not even one reform was implemented and so President Mugabe was able to blatantly rig the 2013 elections and stay in power.
 
Since the 2013 elections the country‘s opposition parties have promised to implement the reforms so the next elections in 2018 will finally be free and fair and produce the competent and accountable government the nation solely need. Sadly this has not happened. 
 
This week Tendai Biti, himself a former MDC Minister of Finance in the GNU, admitted that no reform will be implemented before the next elections. So, unless there is some other way of pressuring Zanu PF to accept political reforms, Zimbabwe is set for yet another Zanu PF rigged election.
 
The only other viable way of forcing Zanu PF to accept political reforms is what we have right now – the worsening economic situation. The regime must be told in no uncertain terms that the only way to end the soaring unemployment, cash shortage, etc., is by implementing the democratic reforms and have free and fair elections.
 
What the Paris Club, IMF, etc.,are offering by opening the taps for new funding is allow this Zanu PF regime to resume its reckless spending, increase the national debt burden without delivering any real meaningful economic recovery. The arrangement will certainly buy Zanu PF time to keep the economy ticking to the next elections which the party can rig and secure another five years in power.
 
What the people of Zimbabwe need is an end to the economic and political chaos that has cause so much suffering and misery and deaths. They need a cure to the present corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical system of government and implementing the reforms is that cure. They would be better off enduring another year of the present economic meltdown or whatever it takes to force this Zanu PF regime to accept meaningful political reforms than take the painkillers Paris Club and friends are offering
 
There is no doubt whatsoever that renewing financial assistance to this corrupt and oppressive Zanu PF regime at this point will help the regime avoid the pressure to implement meaningful political reforms whilst increasing the nation’s debt burden. We, in the Zimbabwe Social Democrats, therefore call upon the Paris Club and their friends to ask themselves whose interests they are serving in granting financial assistance to President Mugabe because it is certainly not the interests of the long suffering people of Zimbabwe.  
 
Signed
Wilbert Mukori
Secretary General
Zimbabwe Social Democrats.

5 comments:

  1. When the Marange diamonds were first discovered in 2006, the nation was told they were worth $800 billion. The then Minister of Mines Obert Mpofu boasted that Zimbabwe would be able to pay off all its debt and from hence forward finance all its development require-ments. Sadly that has never happened as the vultures and hyena moved in and the mother of looting took off!

    In March this year President Mugabe admitted that $15 billion of diamonds were looted from Marange in the six years 2010 to 2015. His two Ministers Jonathan Moyo and Saviour Kasukuwere have since said former VP Mujuru looted a chunk of the $15 billion. So if Mu-juru alone walked away with $ 15 billion, how much did others like the top brass in the CIO, Police and Army who all have mining concessions get? Then there are the individuals like Obert Mpofu and President Mugabe himself.

    Partnership Africa Canada, an NGO monitoring activities in the diamond industry, said Mu-gabe pocketed $2 billion from his share of looting in Marange in 2012 alone. In the 2013 elections President Mugabe was spending money as if the country was back to 2008 when the Z$ was a worthless piece of paper and he could afford to grant teachers a 700% pay rise and Gono printed more paper money with another six or more zeros added!

    Zanu PF has been weakened by the dog-eat-dog fighting in the party but anyone who think the party is now a spend force is daft! Central government is broke and cannot even pay its workers but not the Junta, the Joint Operation Command composed of security top brass, Mnangagwa and a few other selected individuals all controlled like puppets by the control freak Mugabe himself. The Junta is responsible for all the corruption and looting taking place in the country and it is loaded.
    As long as Zanu PF has access to billions of dollars of looted wealth; the party will never "lose" elections!

    There is no doubt that the looting in Marange is one of the worst State inspired plunder of the nation's resources in human history. There is no doubt that the Paris Club, IMF, WB, ADB, individual national governments, etc., etc., all know what is going on in Zimbabwe. It beggars belief why any of these institution are turning a blind eye to all this to do business with such a regime that is rotten to the core!

    Zanu PF can pay the civil servants and still have plenty of cash left to finance yet another elaborate and very expensive vote rigging scheme for the 2018 elections. Why the Paris Club and IMF want to give the regime even more money give the country's junk credit rating is a complete mystery!

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  2. MDC-T’s Obert Gutu believes Zanu PF will call snap elections given the country’s worsening economic situation.

    This may well happen but the idiot considered that going into new elections with no democratic reforms implemented will only mean one thing - Zanu PF rigging the elections once again. MDC-T is the country's official opposition party in that it is the only opposition with MPs in parliament but what a complete waste of space they have turned out to be.

    Yes of course, President Mugabe can call for snap elections, after all he is a dictator used to dictat-ing. He will go on to rig the vote as he has always done in the past. What he has to understand is that he has failed to rig economic recovery because the economy does not care about his diktat, threats, rigging, etc.

    If his reason for calling for snap elections is have elections now before the economic situation gets a lot worse, then he should know that the economic will get a lot worse after he has rigged the elections, there is no getting away from that.

    The only way out of our present economic and political hell-hole is for the nation to implement the democratic reforms; the corrupt, incompetent and utterly useless MDC leaders should implemented during the GNU. President Mugabe should now know the futility of rigging elections when he cannot rig economic recovery too because it is the worsening economic meltdown that is forcing him to give up power.

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  3. CHIEF executive officers (CEOs) of at least 28 State-owned firms salted away nearly US$1 billion between 2014 and 2015 through corporate crimes related to tax evasion, as well as mismanagement of public funds, official documents have revealed.
    Yes, President Mugabe, please explain to the nation how you expect the nation to prosper in the face of all this looting and plunder? You must really think all Zimbabweans are idiots if you expect us all to believe your hen’s teeth story on sanctions damaging the economy!

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  4. UK Financial Times says Mnangagwa will succeed Mugabe.
    VP Mnangagwa thinks that he only has to scrap the Indigenisation law and arrest one or two corrupt officials, especially from the Mujuru and G40 factions and all will be plain sailing from there on. He is wrong Zimbabwe will need the complete dismantling of the Zanu PF dictatorship so there are free and fair elections only then can the country be sure to have a government with the mandate and competence to implement the economic reforms to turn around its crippled economy!
    Mnangagwa has too much baggage; he is after all a senior member of this corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical regime, to be the one to breathe new life into Zimbabwe!

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  5. @ Tawanda

    Increased street protest and demos can easily end up in rioting, the Arab spring and ultimately the toppling of the regime. What is clear and very worrying with our street protest and demos is that those taking part in these activities have no clear idea what should happen next beyond the usual Mugabe must go!

    It is worrying when people continue to follow corrupt and incompetent leaders like Tsvangirai and Mai Mujuru who have already shown that they are incompetent it is clear they have learnt nothing from the past! The danger of Zimbabwe becoming another Egypt or worse is real.

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