OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Thursday 1.00pm.
THE World Bank says that for the first time since independence in 1980 Zimbabwe has failed to service its foreign loans on schedule, a report in Thursday’s independent Financial Gazette said.
The Gazette said it had a copy of a letter from World Bank president James Wolfensohn to International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Michael Camdessus warning that Zimbabwe’s “financial crisis is worsening”.
“The Reserve (Central) Bank is running out of foreign exchange and the country is defaulting on several commercial and concessional loans,” Wolfensohn was quoted as saying.
The letter asks the IMF to work towards releasing $53-million in aid, which has been withheld since last August because of concerns over Zimbabwe’s economic policies and the costs of its involvement in the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
It is expected that if the IMF released the $53-million, other world financiers would free hundreds of millions of dollars which have been withheld because of the IMF’s stance. Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe, however, has recently described the IMF as “a monstrous creature” and said his country can do without it
. “Personally I do not like the IMF,” he said. “We should do without them, but we have people in government and people outside who think otherwise.”
The government’s senior finance secretary, Charles Kuwaza, would not comment on the report, but told the Gazette that as of the end of last year Zimbabwe’s external debt stood at Z$90,2-billion Zimbabwe dollars (about $2,3-billion).