In fact, we need to borrow more money US$10 billion. Double what we owe already. Hopefully, the new loans, if we get them, will enable us to revive the economy and not turn out to have been just a quicker way to plunge crisis-sapped Zimbabwe deeper into insolvency. But this is not our point.
The point is: how did we accrue so much debt? Where did all that money go, when public schools and hospitals were closed because there was no money to pay teachers and health workers?
Put differently: the legitimacy of national debt needs to be established beyond doubt. This is a task as urgent as the writing of a new constitution, but one that, for the sake of convenience and compromise, remains taboo in the unity government.
For a nation emerging from a situation such as the one that prevailed in Zimbabwe -where the government, according to President Robert Mugabe, ditched textbook economics and, so it seems, conventional bookkeeping – it is critical that an independent audit of national debt is carried out.
Before this government can be allowed to borrow more money in our name, it is crucial that we know what happened to funds borrowed in the past. How much went to the people and how much was simply dished out like candy to a privileged elite? In other modern societies this is known as accountability.
We do not wish to besmirch peoples reputations. But the explanation that some have tried to hawk around: that the rules had to be twisted and corners cut because we were busting sanctions, is simply not good enough.
In this regard we would want to believe that Mugabe and Zanu (PF)s obsession with keeping Gideon Gono at the central bank is motivated by nothing other the reason stated, that his appointment was in accordance with the law.
Gono ran – some say illegally so – the nerve centre of the previous governments financial operations. These infamous quasi-fiscal activities saw billions of dollars pumped into such pie-in-the-sky projects as Operation Maguta that was meant to produce food for the country. We are still waiting for that food.
In saying this, we do not suggest any wrongdoing by Gono. But we insist that only an independent audit of the previous administrations books can clear the man and others who handled public funds.
Ultimately, Zimbabwe must honour all debt in its name, regardless of how the money was used. But it would be the greatest betrayal to bestow upon our children the heavy weight of a debt accrued in the pursuit of luxury for a few. We say those who looted public funds must go to jail.
Post published in: Editor: Wilf Mbanga