Zim must mend ties with donors

Former finance minister Tendai Biti said yesterday Zimbabwe needed to mend relations with foreign donors to help kickstart an economy critics say was run into the ground by long-time President Robert Mugabe.

Mugabe, 93, who had been at the helm of the country since independence from Britain in 1980, stepped down earlier this week, succumbing to pressure from his own ruling party, the military, as well as angry citizens grappling with high unemployment, chronic cash shortages and crumbling infrastructure.

Biti, a key opposition leader who was finance minister during a short-lived unity government from 2009 to 2013, told a forum in Johannesburg that 95% of Zimbabweans were unemployed, while 87% lived on less that 35 US cents a day.

Zimbabwe’s economic woes have been exacerbated by foreign donor institutions and governments withholding financial support over differences with Mugabe, including his seizure of white-owned commercial farms and charges that he rigged elections since 2000 to stay in power.

Biti said: “We have to make peace with London, Brussels and Washington. We have to find the boys and girls with money.”

Yesterday, Reuters news agency quoted a senior International Monetary Fund (IMF) official as saying Zimbabwe’s economic growth was threatened by high government spending, an untenable foreign exchange regime and inadequate reforms.

“The economic situation in Zimbabwe remains very difficult,” Gene Leon, the IMF’s mission chief for Zimbabwe said. – ANA