IMF mum on Zim expulsion threat
2005-09-01 16:06
Special Report
Four Chinese men face deportation from Zimbabwe after they were arrested for killing more than 40 tortoises for meat, a report says.
A dusty road leads to the village of Wedza, where veterans of Zimbabwe's liberation war eke out a meagre living on their farm cooperative, which after a promising start now brings only despair.
Washington - The International Monetary Fund stayed tight-lipped on Thursday on Zimbabwe's possible expulsion from the world lender after the crisis-hit African country repaid some of its IMF debts.
The IMF took note that Zimbabwe on Monday had repaid $120m of its arrears but said President Robert Mugabe's government still owes it about $174m dating back four years.
The IMF board will meet on September 9 to consider an annual review of Zimbabwe's economy "as well as the possible issue of compulsory withdrawal", the organisation said in a brief statement.
"An IMF staff mission is currently in Harare to review recent economic developments and prospects. The mission is also preparing a report for the IMF executive board," it said.
An IMF official refused to be drawn on whether the partial repayment of Zimbabwe's debt had eased the climate, saying further comment would come only after next week's board meeting.
The trip by the IMF team currently in Zimbabwe was extended by two days and ended ON Wednesday. The mission is due to fly out on Friday.
Zimbabwe Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono said ON Thursday the repayment of part of the IMF debt did not automatically avert the country's threatened expulsion from the global lender.
"We are a guilty party from a technical point of view," he was quoted as saying by the state-run Herald newspaper.
"All we can do is to plead mitigatory circumstances to our arrears situation and pray that the jury will see for itself how genuine our efforts at self-correction are."
Gono said the repayment came possibly from a "positive response from some of our exporters and holders of free funds in response to some of the turnaround initiatives ... in particular the favourable exchange rate policies".
But South Africa's Business Day newspaper on Thursday said it came from "undeclared foreign exchange reserves which could be seen by the IMF as a serious violation of its rules on transparent presentation of key data".
If expelled, Zimbabwe would be only the second country to be thrown out of the IMF after the former Czechoslovakia in 1954.
Foreign critics and domestic opposition parties accuse Mugabe squarely for being responsible for the country's devastating economic decline, characterised by triple-digit inflation and sky-high unemployment.
But Mugabe's government has blamed drought and sanctions by the European Union and the United States for the country's plight.
Zimbabwe's economy has shrunk by 30% in the past four years following the seizures in 2000 of about 4 500 white-owned commercial farms which sent agricultural production plummetting.
- AFP