To find a peaceful and democratic solution to Zimbabwe’s problems the African Union and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) need to develop an informed, honest and objective consensus as to its origins and avoid public pronouncements that unwittingly distort the facts.
This particularly applies to South Africa where, on occasion, the government’s pronouncements on Zimbabwe’s various ills appear to be guided by a revisionist narrative of developments in post-independence Zimbabwe.
President Thabo Mbeki appears to be of the view that graft and economic mismanagement are not the principal causes of Zimbabwe’s debt. Instead, he points to the massive spending programme on education and health that took place in the 1980s to address the legacy of inequality inherited from the colonial era. This noble and impressive programme, however, was mainly paid for by external donors and not from money allocated from the public purse.
Moreover, Mugabe’s commitment to social justice was transient. The little public money he invested in this programme essentially stopped in 1990.
At this point, Zimbabwe’s debt was $3,24-billion, 25% of gross domestic product, and, therefore, manageable. Contrary to the South African view, it was events after 1990 that account for today’s chronic debt crisis.
The adoption of the poorly thought-out Economic Structural Adjustment Programme, the military adventure in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the massive, unbudgeted, hand-out to war veterans in 1997, and the endemic corruption that took root across all levels of the government precipitated spiralling debts that by 1998 had reached $4,716-billion and which today stand at an estimated $7–billion.
The gaps in South Africa’s analysis of the situation raise concerns about the policy objectives behind the proposed loan. If South Africa is firmly of the view that Zimbabwe’s debts are an unavoidable consequence of post-independence obligations then this indicates a disturbing belief that a lasting solution can be found primarily through bilateral economic support.
The Movement for Democratic Change, therefore, suspects that South Africa is going to provide a loan with or without conditions. The absence of any conditions would be a grave error for three main reasons.
Firstly, paying off Zimbabwe’s debts without addressing the conditions that have made Zimbabwe’s need to borrow inevitable would prove to be a profligate exercise. Secondly, giving money directly to the Zimbabwean government, without any safeguards, increases the potential that the money will be abused for the purposes of political manipulation or profiteering by government officials.
Thirdly, and most importantly, the crisis in Zimbabwe is essentially a political one and therefore it requires a sustainable political solution.
Any extension of credit must be conditional upon irreversible steps being taken to secure a sustainable political settlement. If not, our collective fear of Zimbabwe becoming a failed state could easily become a reality that will have huge socio-economic consequences for South Africa and the broader SADC region.
A further concern is that, as the bulk of the money on offer appears to be directed towards paying off arrears, it will have little impact on the lives of ordinary Zimbabweans suffering on the ground. Given the scale of our humanitarian crisis, it would be a tragedy if the loan did not include a tranche for the purposes of immediate humanitarian relief.
Time is not on our side. Mugabe needs to be persuaded that his obstinacy towards a process of national dialogue is driving the country he fought hard to create towards the brink of collapse and plunging the people he helped to liberate into a state of unprecedented suffering.
SADC leaders need to be cognisant of this. If the region is to meet its development objectives it cannot afford to maintain the collective deafening silence that has accompanied the United Nations report that documented the displacement and humanitarian crisis that followed Operation Murumbatsvina.
Tendai Biti is the Movement for Democratic Change secretary for finance and economics