Christian Beddies is the IMF’s first appointment in Zimbabwe since 2004 when the Washington-based lender closed its office in the country, two officials with knowledge of the development said, declining to be identified because they aren’t authorized to speak to media on the matter.
The IMF is “finalizing the process for appointing a resident representative in Harare,” who should be in place in July, the IMF said, without identifying the appointee.
Zimbabwe has been in default to the IMF since 1999, former Finance Minister Tendai Biti said last year. The government said in March it will make a “token payment” to the IMF as the country works on a program to reduce its debt.
President Robert Mugabe’s government is trying to spur the recovery of the economy, which shrank by 40 percent between 2000 and 2008.
The IMF estimated that the country’s inflation rate reached 500 billion percent in 2008 after the seizure of white-owned commercial farms disrupted exports of crops including tobacco and roses.
In 2009 the country abandoned its currency in favour of the dollar and the South African rand to tame inflation.
Post published in: News
We welcome the IMF back to Zimbabwe but on a clear understanding that they are there to drive home to Mugabe and his tyrannical regime that they have failed to govern the nation. All their efforts to resuscitate the national economy have failed; the ZimAsset begging bowl has remained mockingly empty and the party has lacked the courage to scrap its ill-advised indigenisation and black empowerment policies that have scarred away would be investors.
Without the injection of donor funds and a significant increase in new investments Zimbabwe’s already serious economic meltdown will only get worse. Unemployment is already seating at a nauseating 85% plus and most basic services like water, electricity and sanitation have all but collapsed causing untold human suffering and unnecessary deaths! This cannot go on; the cup is full to overflow.
It is time for Mugabe to go!
The IMF must not come back to Zimbabwe to mollycoddle and bailout Mugabe and give him any encouragement that the mismanagement and corruption can continue. The IMF representative’s brief must be to Mugabe and his regime that the only hope of saving the Zimbabwe economy from total meltdown is for them to resign!