The
IMF like the ghosts from Christmas Past, Present and Future tell “Ebenezer
Scrooge” Robert Mugabe to “implement structural (economic) reforms” or be “scrooged”!
“Achieving
Zimbabwe’s fuller growth potential over the medium term depends on pursuing
strong macroeconomic policies, including building up fiscal and external
buffers and increasing budgetary resources going to non-personnel related spending,
and implementing structural reforms to foster investment, improve the business
climate, and strengthen governance and institutions, including by increasing
the transparency of the minerals regime.” The IMF said.
Of
course everything the IMF has said makes sense, indeed they have said the same
thing countless times in the last 34 years all to no avail. It went in one ear
and straight out the second without as much as a pose!
Mugabe
has never implemented any of these reforms because to do so would have meant
abandoning his political patronage system - the very foundation on which Zanu
PF stands.
Back
in 1990 when Mugabe was forced to adopt the first of the two five-year Economic
Structural Adjustment Programmes (ESAP) the regime implemented the cuts
affecting the ordinary people but only trimmed a few thin branches when it came
to cuts affecting the ruling elite. If anything it was the later areas that
needed whole branches hacked off!
The
first ESAP failed to deliver the much hoped for economic recovery and thus
making the second programme necessary and the IMF and World Bank, who had
proposed and were funding the programmes, asked for even deeper cuts in the ruling
elite's size of the national cake. Again Mugabe did not have the political will
to implement the cuts.
By the
end of the second ESAP in 2000 Mugabe was even blaming the IMF and WB for the
country's economic down turn. The two institutions, tired of throwing good
money into the Zanu PF black-hole, stopped all lending to the regime.
The
reforms the IMF was asking for are the same it has been asking for even before
the ESAP. The only subtle difference is the IMF is not putting a cent of its
own money put front because it has since learnt that Mugabe will take the money
but will not implement anything!
In the
past Mugabe had met the IMF team, they wittered on about "implementing
structural reforms to foster investment," blah, blah, blah. The tyrant put
up with all that nonsense because the team gave him a fat cheque at the end of
the lecture. When it was clear IMF will not donate even a cent to his $27
billion ZimAsset begging bowl the tyrant was no doubt "too busy" to
meet the team!
Over
the years Zimbabwe's national economy has got progressive worse and worse but
has never sunk to the same frightening depth as it has sunk - and it has not
hit the bottom yet - and never this quickly.
Mugabe
did not want to be out done by Tsvangirai with his $4 billion JUICE and so he
came up with his $ 27 billion ZimAsset but that empty begging bowl is mocking
him!
2 comments:
@ Smart Talk
Dr Makoni, Mugabe, Tsvangirai, Mai Mujuru and all the others you have named have all shown that they will all talk about human rights, freedom, liberty and justice when it helps them get into power. The minute they are in power they have willingly ignore or even actively violated these values to stay in power. That means they have no principles.
The rest of your argument is about Dr Makoni being "better" at hiding his lack of principles or would not have made some of the stupid blunders Tsvangirai, for ex-ample, made. These are all true but totally irrelevant because having agreed that they all bad - i.e. they lack principles - whatever you are doing from that point is ar-gue who is worse - that is not to be confused with better.
To be consider a national leader one must prove that they value the rights and free-doms of all Zimbabweans as a minimum requirement. There are Zimbabweans out there with these minimum qualification; we have not found them because we as a nation have not been looking for such individuals. We have been too lazy to look for them. We lowered the bar so low that people like Dr Makoni, Mugabe, Tsvangirai have all been consider suitable when all they had to do is say they fighting for human rights, etc. Of course, anyone can say that.
The fact that people like Dr Makoni, Mugabe, Tsvangirai have gone on to prove that they have no principles at all and yet some people still consider them suitable as leaders proves that the electorate has lowered the bar so low, there is nothing there. Tava kungo kuvirira zvose mavhu namarara!
Zimbabweans voted for Tsvangirai in 2008 and would have done so again in 2013 not because he is competent leader, far from it. Tsvangirai is a blundering and in-competent leader. People voted for him because Mugabe is worse! What the people failed to take into consideration is the fact that Mugabe is a cunning tyrant and he outwitted and bamboozled Tsvangirai with great ease. The people for their part have learnt nothing and are willing to try again with the same blundering idiot as their man. This has become a rat race to the bottom; to use your upside down logic, we as a nation have excelled in this race!
@ Daily News
In the past the IMF has given Zimbabwe a lot of economic advice and a lot of cash. Now it still gives the same advice "implement reforms" but no cash. The IMF did not drop even a single dollar into Mugabe's $27 billion ZimAsset begging bowl. Not even a cent so the tyrant can have something to rattle the bowl with!
One can not blame the IMF, in the past the Zanu PF regime took the money but ignored the advice. The IMF has since learnt the lesson.
Whilst Mugabe has refused to take listen to advice on cutting the size of the bloated civil service he has started to do something about the rampant corruption. Mugabe will be forced to implementing all the other reforms too one way or the other because the national economy is in serious trouble! It is either he implement the reforms or someone else will - not implementing the reforms is no long an option!
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