I’m talking about our inherited debt. There doesn’t seem to be a satisfactory way out of the problem.
Your Zanu (PF) critics are right when they say going to the IMF, even for debt forgiveness’, threatens our control of our own fate. They prefer to call this sovhereniti’. But they use that word to mean their bosses’ control. They aren’t really interested in our people controlling anything.
The problem is that the IMF aren’t interested in our people controlling anything, either. They justify themselves by pretending to be like a mother bird, feeding its young what is good for them. All the little birds have to do is to keep their mouths open and accept what they are given. That is, if you trust mother’. I don’t trust the IMF. Remember where that landed us last time.
They taught Zanu (PF), who still liked to call themselves socialist, that enriching yourself was economically respectable. During the 1980s, there had been some talk of distributing wealth. Even though the leading slogan Growth with equity’ fell far short of anything real socialists would recognise, it did take distribution of the wealth into account. With ESAP, only growth mattered – and the devil take the hindmost.
That was when our education went into decline. We need to remember that by 2000 our average life expectancy had dropped to the present appalling levels – with a little help from AIDS. That is what ESAP meant. Faced with the opposition to ESAP-2, ZANU went into panic mode, and when they panic they are dangerous: 3rd Chimurenga’, violent and rigged elections, all their unimaginative weapons, were brought out against us.
Now the IMF are telling you that to have our debt forgiven, we must accept ESAP-3 , administered by them; at least 3 years of belt-tightening before they will consider forgiving’ us for someone else’s sins.
There are people around the world crying out Don’t owe – won’t pay’
That means the process has to be transparent. There needs to be a proper audit of the supposed debt. The audit needs to be open to inspection by all the people; none of this quiet boardroom approval of an expensive auditor’s finagling. More importantly, any new loan should be subject to the same process before it can be approved. That places a lot of demands on government. Most governments don’t like that much accountability. Show us you can stand it and you’ll be top of the list of our real heroes.
The only trouble is, this will take a few years. If you’re looking for a quick fix, there isn’t one.
Post published in: Opinions