“Zimbabwe's efforts to clear its arrears with international lenders who include the World Bank and the African Development Bank have hit a snag after an unnamed financier dumped the country halfway through negotiations for a funding deal,” reported Fingaz.
“Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube told Parliament that Government had gone back to the drawing board in a bid to secure new financiers to help extinguish its international obligations.
“Ncube said the country had resumed its token payments to contain debt accumulation.”
The sheer foolishness of the whole hare brain scheme beggars belief. What exactly was Professor Mthuli Ncube trying to achieve here? Has he gone mad?
Zimbabwe is a Banana Republic in every sense of that phrase! The country has failed to revive its own economy; the economy has been in total meltdown although the regime insists it growing and on target to be a middle income by vision 2030; and, worst of all, has done nothing to stop the haemorrhage through mismanagement and corruption.
Zimbabwe could pay off its outstanding debts and bankroll its economic recovery if it could rein in the criminal waste of resources through mismanagement and corruption. In 2015, in one of his very rare moments of openness, the late Zimbabwean dictator, Robert Mugabe, admitted the country had been swindled out of US$ 15 billion in diamond revenue alone.
Of course, Mugabe knew who the swindlers were; it was he and his cabinet that granted the diamond mining concession and approved the fragrant disregard of the country’s laws and regulation including the failure to keep any record of quantity and quality of diamonds, to whom the diamonds were sold and for how much, who are the partners and how much they received, etc. It was all a bluff talking of swindlers when the Zanu PF regime itself was responsible to facilitating the looting.
In 2012 Africa Canada, a Canadian body monitoring the world wide trade in diamonds, reported that Mugabe earned US$ 2 billion from looted diamonds. Mugabe; Mnangagwa; the top brass in the Army, Police and CIO; and a few others in the Zanu PF ruling elite are the Godfathers of corruption and have looted the nation blind.
When Mnangagwa seized power following the 2017 military coup that toppled Mugabe, he promised “zero tolerance on corruption”. He has done nothing to end corruption; indeed, the secretive diamond mining concessions have not only been retained but extended to other areas such Platinum and Gold mining. The looting under Mugabe has continued under Mnangagwa.
Zimbabwe is losing at least US$ 5 billion per year through gross mismanagement and rampant corruption this is simply unsustainable for a nation whose GPD is US$ 10 billion or so. As long as nothing is done to stop this criminal waste of resources it is foolish to even think there could ever be any meaningful economic recovery.
What Minister Ncube was trying to do was to borrow money from this “unnamed financier” to pay off the WB debt. With its WB debt finally cleared, Zimbabwe was going to borrow money from the WB. Why would the WB grand Zimbabwe fresh loans knowing the country still has the serious problem of corruption and therefore unlikely to put the loan to productive use?
The “unnamed financier” was going to change Zimbabwe even higher interest rates than WB is charging. If you are in a hole; for Pete’s sake, stop digging!
Until Zimbabwe ends the curse of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption which are the root causes of the criminal waste of human and material resources; there will be no meaningful economic recovery in the country.
It is crystal clear that Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies will never ever end corruption, they are the Godfathers of corruption. And so to end corruption the country must first end the Zanu PF dictatorship. We must bite the bullet and demand the implementation of the democratic reforms designed to end Zanu PF’s carte blanche powers to rig elections.
Holding free, fair and credible elections is Zimbabwe’s ticket out of the economic and political hell-on-earth we find ourselves stuck in! Borrowing money from loan sharks to pay off existing debts will only land us in even worse financial trouble.
4 comments:
@ Dzikira
“The MDC-A has calculated that drawing ire from the opposition would be less harmful than inviting the wrath of the Tanzanian government. This has angered the democracy proselytising faction which, in the fashion of Popovic, wants to convert the whole continent to Westminster style democracy. The impulsive Job Sikhala is said to be the leading member of this group while Biti, and other strategic thinkers, lead the group which seeks to appease ruling parties in order to isolate ZANU PF. Chamisa is said to be vacillating between the two groups.”
Anybody who is anybody wrote MDC off after the party failed to implement even one democratic reform during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. Morgan Tsvangirai and company sold-out big time and have continued to sell-out by participating in elections with no reforms. Anyone who still expect anything good out of MDC has no clue what he/she is talking about!
The opposition parties within SADC region has been a great disappointment because none of them, as far as I know, have ever criticised MDC leaders for selling out on reforms. None!
Satire: Trump Calls Dambudzo To Urgently Send Chigumba In Swop Deal With Sanctions End!
Good one!
Apparently, Donald Trump is standing alone in his refusal to accept defeat. He is calling for vote counting to stop in all those States where he is leading and vote counting to continue in all those states he is lagging behind. He is claiming there is vote rigging without providing any evidence, etc. It is little wonder none of the Republican leaders want to be seen to be supporting such nonsense.
Donald Trump is behaving like a Zanu PF thug and there is no doubt that everyone in the West would now want to punish tyrants more harshly just to remind power hungry idiots in their own country that they will not tolerate anyone who seek to get into office by hook and crook.
Even if one gave Professor Mthuli Ncube the benefit of the doubt that he did not know the full extend of corruption in Zimbabwe, it is hard to say he still has no clue after two years as the country’s Minister of Finance. He knows that corruption is rampant, costing the nation billions of dollars per year and, most notable of all, that there can be no meaningful economic recovery until something is done to stop this haemorrhage.
There is no evidence to suggest that Minister Ncube has done anything to curb corruption.
If he has tried to persuade that powers that be to curb corruption and they have refused too listen; which is very likely, knowing how much these Zanu PF thugs are totally addicted to corruption. The question one has to ask is what is Professor Ncube still doing in this regime?
There is no denying that people like Professor Mthuli Ncube knew Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF regime rigged the July 2018 elections and they are corrupt to the core. Ncube knew he was offered the position of Minister of Finance to spruce up Zanu PF’s tarnished image and he, in turn, accepted the job knowing he will not change anything of substance. Still he accepted the job for selfish reasons, it was a high profile job.
The struggle to end the Zanu PF dictatorship has been long and bitter Zanu PF has never had any problems recruiting seemingly respectable Zimbabwean professionals to prop up the regime. Zimbabwe has more than its fair share of sell-outs, some like Professor Ncube and Minister Kirsty Coventry have joined Zanu PF whilst others like Chamisa and his MDC friends are masquerading as the opposition. If we are ever to end the Zanu PF dictatorship we must first put the sell-outs out of business!
@ Zivanai Dhewa
This follows a highly contested US election where Joe Biden seems to be taking the lead against Donald Trump on the battle for the White House.
Trump has gone on television and made claims that the election was rigged.
Trump said, "And we were getting ready for a big celebration, we were winning everything and all of a sudden it was just called off.
"This is a fraud for the American public, this is an embarrassment to our country, we were getting ready to win this election. Frankly we did win this election.
"So our goal now is to ensure the integrity for the good of this nation, this is a very big moment, this is a major fraud on our nation. We want the law to be used in a proper manner, so we will be going to the US Supreme Court.
"We want all voting to stop, we don't want them to find any ballots in the morning and add them to the list…as far as I'm concerned we have already won," Trump concluded.
The world has just witnessed what a power hungry individual would do to retain power. Trump has only been in power for four years and still had done enough to cause serious disruption to the smooth running of elections and other democratic activities. Just image how much more damage he would have caused if he had managed to impose his will and stayed in office another 4 more years!
Zanu PF thugs have been in office for 40 years and counting and it is no surprise the regime has corrupted all the nation’s state institutions and has repeatedly rigged the elections. ZEC has failed to produce something as basic as a verified voters’ roll, a legal and common sense requirement.
Even with no verified voters’ roll, 3 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora denied the vote and all the evidence that Zanu PF was going to once again rig the elections, the opposition parties participated regardless. They knew Zanu PF was going to give away a few gravy train seats as bait for participating and that they could not resist.
So it is no exaggeration to say Zanu PF has all the state institutions and the opposition in its pocket! If Zimbabwe is ever going to hold free, fair and credible elections, the nation has to completely overhaul its political system, the corrupt and tyrannical ruling party and the equally corrupt and utterly useless opposition parties.
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