REUTERS AND OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Monday
THE World Bank is to formally classify Zimbabwe as one of the world’s worst economic pariahs as its inflation rate nears 120%, with potentially damaging consequences for South Africa and the entire sub-continent.
Zimbabwe will be accorded “non-accrual status” for failing to make any payment on its debt to the bank for the last six months, according to Rogier van den Brink, the bank’s deputy representative in Zimbabwe.
The country joins 11 other nations also in arrears to the World Bank for the last six months. They are Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo Republic, Liberia, Sudan, Syria, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Bosnia Herzogovina and Burma.
Van den Brink appeared also to endorse widespread local and international belief that the first step to resolve the country’s desperate crisis is the end of Mugabe’s 20-year dictatorship.
His remarks, in a paper issued here at the weekend, are regarded as starkly outspoken considering the usually cautious language used by the World Bank.
But it is seen as one of the most alarming illustrations yet of the enormous destruction inflicted by Mugabe on what until recently promised to be a shining exception to Africa’s record of violence, poverty and economic collapse.
There was worse to come, added van den Brink, saying the country is “in turmoil”. Gross domestic product in 2001 will fall by as much as a staggering 10% and inflation may reach 120%.
“This fragile situation could degenerate even further, with severe economic, social and political consequences to the country itself and to the Southern African region,” he said.
Last week the government appeared to have escaped by the skin of its teeth the effects of economic isolation by the world’s most powerful nation when the US Congress put off voting on the controversial Zimbabwe Democracy Bill, which proposes to cut all economic aid to the Mugabe regime and to block all World Bank and International Monetary Fund support.
At the weekend, ordinary Zimbabweans’ patience was put to a further test when foreign currency reserves began to dry up and international oil companies shut off fuel supplies.
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