“Zimbabwe owes Japan about $400 million
- overdue debt. It owes the top five Paris Club creditor nations (Germany,
France, Japan, UK and the US) $2,6 billion. Zimbabwe's debt is nearly $10
billion. This would not have been a big deal if the economy was big, and if the
debt was not overdue,” you said.
“I have seen some analyst give themselves comfort by expressing this debt as a percentage of GDP. That is mindless and phoney analysis. Since this debt is overdue and must be paid during the year, it must be expressed as a percentage of the projected government revenue since you don't settle your debt from GDP. Given that Chinamasa projects government revenue for 2016 at $3,8 billion (the actual figures will be far less), this renders the Zimbabwe government technical insolvent. This whole situation took place under Mugabe's watch.”
“I have seen some analyst give themselves comfort by expressing this debt as a percentage of GDP. That is mindless and phoney analysis. Since this debt is overdue and must be paid during the year, it must be expressed as a percentage of the projected government revenue since you don't settle your debt from GDP. Given that Chinamasa projects government revenue for 2016 at $3,8 billion (the actual figures will be far less), this renders the Zimbabwe government technical insolvent. This whole situation took place under Mugabe's watch.”
This is spot on! I would only wish to
add that Zimbabwe’s creditors have all refused to grant the country the “heavily
indebted nation status” because they all know that Zimbabwe has the capacity to
pay back it debts if the nation’s vast resources and wealth were managed
properly and not wasted away through gross mismanagement and rampant corruption
and looting.
According to Partnership Africa Canada,
a Canadian NGO monitoring the world trade in diamonds, Mugabe alone pocketed $2
billion from his share of the wholesale looting going on in Marange and
Chiadzwa. The Police, Army and CIO are some of the other local partners with
mining concession in the area and Partnership Africa did not know how much they
are pocketing. So Mugabe alone is pocketing 20% of the total national debt or
more than 53% of Zimbabwe’s annual $3.8 billion 2016 budget.
Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa tired
of being asked government was not receiving a dollar from the diamond bonanza told
parliament in early 2015 the were no alluvial diamonds left in Marange and
Chiadzwa. In his letter to IMF in May 2015, just a few weeks after his
statement to parliament, the Minister change his story; he diamond operators
were facing some serious problems and
government had decided to stop collecting tax to give the industry the chance
to recover. He knew the IMF and the world know the mining in Marange had not
stopped but, if anything gone into overdrive!
One has to agree with the debtors granting
Mugabe “most indebted nation status” will have encourage him to borrow even
more with no intention of paying back as before and he would have expand his
looting activities beyond Marange and Chiadzwa!
Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown is of
Mugabe’s own making and after 36 years of gross mismanagement, rampant
corruption and reckless borrowing and spending the chicken have finally come
home to roost in the millions, like red-billed quelea. Mugabe was able to bribe,
bamboozle, rig elections, threaten and even murder his political opponents and
critics to stay in power.
However he has failed to rig economic
prosperity and it is Zimbabwe’s economic collapse and mass poverty that will, in the end, force him to give up
power! It is the economy stupid that will deliver regime change in Zimbabwe.
1 comment:
The regime has just spent $50 million buying new cars for the ruling elite and next day it is beg-ging for food! Even those who wanted to help are finding it increasing difficult to square this circle! If Zimbabwe can allow Mugabe to pocket $ 2 billion a year from Marange, buy $50 million cars and other luxuries for the ruling elite then surely the country is rich and it can certainly afford to buy food to feed its own people!
The people themselves have to wake up and demand a more just distribution of the nation's re-sources. By allowing all this looting and waste, the people are sending a message to the world that they do not care that the regime is wasting resources whilst they starve. If the starving are not bothered that they are starving then why should the rest of the world be bothered about them; if people want to suffer and die let them!
Not even one Zimbabwean would go to bed hungry much less starve to death because the country has some of the best land for growing food and farming animals; Zimbabwe was the bread basket of the region until Mugabe seized all the farms to give them to his cronies. For the last 15 years the country has failed to produce enough to feed its own people and yet the people have said or done nothing to stop this dangerous situation. Nothing that is other than go hungry and starve!
Zimbabweans have the dubious honour of starving in the Garden of Eden!
The Gods help those who help themselves and even so with mortals. No one is going to break his/her back saving the same people over and over again from drowning in a pond a few feet deep because they are too lazy to stand up!
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