Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank on Tuesday said its surprise $120-million loan payback to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) came from ”free funds” and export earnings.
Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono also said in a statement that Zimbabwe had not rejected loan assistance from South Africa, part of which would be used to pay back the IMF loan.
Zimbabwe was given a six-month reprieve two weeks ago by the Washington-based lender, which had threatened to expel the Southern African country due to non-payment.
Zimbabwe paid back $120-million, bringing to $131-million its total repayments since February, with its remaining debt to the IMF standing at $175-million.
”When I went to Washington to defend the country’s interests before the IMF, I carried with me detailed evidence of transactions which made up the $120-million and such detail was revealed to all the directors that I interfaced with,” Gono said.
”The full revelation [of the funds] is being done with a view to putting the matter to rest,” Gono said in a statement, published with a list in the local media on Tuesday.
The list showed most of the funds came from so-called ”free funds” — deposited in overseas accounts but not linked to exports — and proceeds from sales of gold, tobacco and cotton exports as well as purchases of foreign exchange.
Gono also said Zimbabwe has not rejected a South African loan offer ”part of which [$100-million] was earmarked for part-payment to the IMF”.
”Zimbabwe has not rejected the loan assistance from South Africa. It is simply that the negotiations are taking a bit longer to conclude than had been expected and parties to these discussions remain engaged,” he said.
An economist on Tuesday criticised Gono’s statement saying despite it showing the amounts of money paid through transferring banks, mainly to the Federal Reserve in New York, it still did not show exactly where the money came from.
”It is not very revealing. Lots still seems to be hidden on were the money originated from,” said Harare-based independent economist John Robertson.
The IMF had been keen to verify the source of the funds as part of its rules on transparency.
SA govt ‘bending over backwards’ with loan
Meanwhile, South Africa’s opposition Democratic Alliance said a loan to Zimbabwe would amount to an endorsement of that country’s erosion of the rule of law.
”It appears that despite [Zimbabwean President] Robert Mugabe’s apparent rejection of any conditions, the South African government is bending over backwards to tailor a package acceptable to Mugabe,” the party said in a statement on Tuesday.
”This kind of fawning attitude towards a power hungry dictator is not only unbecoming, but also an insult to the suffering he has imposed upon millions of Zimbabweans.”
The National Treasury earlier said talks on the loan were ongoing.
”We have not broken off discussions,” spokesperson Logan Wort said.
Other assistance that Zimbabwe required included the immediate alleviation of food shortages and funding for agricultural inputs ”so the country can have food next year”.
The talks were focusing in large part on Zimbabwean plans for the restructuring of that country’s economy. Previous indications were that the assistance was likely to come in the form of a loan and grants.
Wort could not say how much money was involved.
Recent estimations of about $400-million would now in all likelihood exclude the money already paid to the IMF.
There was no indication of when the talks, led for South Africa by Finance Minister Trevor Manuel and SA Reserve Bank (SARB) Governor Tito Mboweni, would be concluded.
Neither the SARB nor the Government Communication and Information System was prepared to comment on Tuesday.
The DA said the South African public deserved to know whether money would be loaned to Zimbabwe.
”It is, after all, money belonging to the South African taxpayer which might be sent to a nation where the president and his government only honour agreements in the breach.”
There have been several contradictory statements from senior government officials, including Manuel and Mboweni, about the talks and the nature of the proposed assistance, DA foreign affairs spokesman Douglas Gibson said.
A subsequent ”clampdown on the flow of information” meant that South Africans were increasingly reliant on information from Harare.
Recent statements attributed to Zimbabwean central bank Governor Gideon Gono begged the question whether South Africa was ”determined to press ahead with the loan, despite Zimbabwe’s obvious reluctance to accept any conditions”, Gibson said. – Sapa-AFP, Sapa