Speaking as consultative talks between the government and an IMF
delegation dragged on in Harare, sources said the fund, which abandoned
Zimbabwe in August 1999, would maintain "a wait-and-see attitude on
Zimbabwe."
A top level IMF delegation led by Vitaliy Kramarenko arrived Monday and
had scheduled meetings with Finance Minister Tendai Biti, Gideon Gono,
the Reserve Bank governor and the principals to the power-sharing
agreement. The IMF team is accompanied by officials from the World
Bank, who deserted Harare in 2006 and will be in Zimbabwe until March
24.
The IMF team jetted into Zimbabwe a week after Biti tabled a document
at the SADC Council of Ministers’ meeting in South Africa, which
roughly computed the immediate needs. Biti’s document contains a
request for US$1bn for "direct on-budget assistance" to get schools,
hospitals and farms running. It includes the costs of recurrent
expenditure to pay civil servants salaries in foreign exchange; the
purchase of drugs, medical equipment and agricultural inputs; and for
urgent assistance to the vulnerable and destitute.
The US$2 billion excludes land reform and investment in energy. Full
reconstruction, says Biti’s document, would cost about US$5bn. Biti
based this projection on a UNDP report compiled by economists last year.
Winning IMF backing for Zimbabwe’s economic recovery programme is
critical for Harare’s new inclusive government to convince sceptical
Western government to provide much needed financial assistance and
other support.
Official sources said the IMF team reiterated the importance of market
forces dictating prices of goods and commodities and also explored ways
of stabilising the Zimbabwe dollar.
Long-standing differences, such as the question of Zimbabwe’s
dollarisation and the slow pace of privatisation of loss-making
government parastatals, are also still an impediment to the resumption
of IMF aid, the diplomats said. The IMF’s suspension of
balance-of-payments support to Zimbabwe has blocked billions of dollars
worth of aid from other
donors and institutions, which provide help to countries that have functional IMF aid programme.
A diplomatic source said the IMF delegation had, in technical
discussions, generally accepted the approach and proposals on key
policy issues such as how to stabilise Zimbabwe’s exchange rate,
interest rate management and the handling of the burgeoning national
debt by Biti.
While Biti was not immediately available for comment, he is moving to
implement economic policies modelled around the MDC economic blueprint,
RESTART, which proposes reining in spending and drastically reducing
the US$4,7 billion owed by the government to foreign creditors within
the first 100 days of the inclusive government.