Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade said on Monday he would travel to Zimbabwe this month to recommend multilateral mediation by African heads of state to try to solve the crisis in the Southern African country.
Wade said he wanted to discuss with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe how African leaders, including himself and South African President Thabo Mbeki, could mediate between Mugabe and his opponents, both domestic and international.
”I’m going to go there in two weeks’ time … to talk with him [Mugabe] to see what Africa can do,” the Senegalese president told a news conference in Dakar.
Wade said the situation in Zimbabwe was deteriorating, with inflation running at well over 6 000%, the highest rate in the world, and basic goods running short.
Mugabe (83) who has been in power since independence from Britain in 1980, rejects accusations that he has abused human rights and wrecked Zimbabwe’s once-prosperous economy.
He accuses Western countries of sabotaging the economy as punishment for his seizure of white-owned farms to resettle landless blacks.
Wade, who like Mugabe is in his 80s, complained that there was no official African Union (AU) position on Zimbabwe and repeated his view that mediation should not be left to Mbeki alone.
A grouping of Southern African nations has mandated Mbeki to secure a deal on constitutional reform between Mugabe and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change ahead of March 2008 presidential and parliamentary polls.
But Wade, who from his small West African country has often sparred with Mbeki over leadership on African issues, said Zimbabwe should be dealt with on a wider basis.
”Mbeki is a man of goodwill … [but] we should tackle the problem at the level of several heads of state, including Thabo Mbeki,” he said.
Wade said any mediation for Zimbabwe should also bring in former colonial power Britain, which had been party to a 1979 accord on reforms to end land ownership imbalances between blacks and whites.
Wade said the British government had stopped compensating white farmers under the land redistribution reform accord, while Mugabe had stepped up seizures of land without redress.
”I think that this method is not acceptable … the whites should have compensation,” Wade said.
Diplomats said the compensation from Britain had been halted because London felt Mugabe’s government was no longer respecting its side of the 1979 Lancaster House accord which paved the way for independence.
Wade said the need for mediation in Zimbabwe was urgent.
”There are elections next year. Who will mediate between the government and opposition?” he added, speaking in English.
Wade said disagreements over how to deal with Zimbabwe were threatening an upcoming European Union/African Union summit planned for December in Lisbon, after British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he would not go if Mugabe attended.
”’I leave you with a promise’
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe’s central bank said on Monday it would help to restock empty store shelves by the end of the month.
Among the planned programmes were cheap loans to manufacturers to restore productivity, and hard currency payments to farmers to keep them in business.
”I leave you with a promise most basic goods should and will return to the shelves in the next three weeks,” Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono said on state television.
Gono said the bank also planned to change the nation’s currency, striking more zeros off bank notes for the second time since August of last year.
In June, the government issued an edict to slash prices on all goods and services by about half. This included a crackdown on overcharging in which more than 7 000 corporate executives, business managers, traders and bus drivers were arrested, jailed and fined for price violations.
The price cuts were meant to tame inflation. Instead, the effect was to worsen already acute shortages of food and basic goods in the crumbling economy.
Under a new central bank loan programme, producers and rural stores hard hit by supply shortages would be able to borrow funds to restore their businesses at the country’s lowest interest rate of 25% over nine months.
To boost production of staple foods, the bank would help the government pay the world parity price of around $200 a tonne for maize and wheat, half in local currency and half in hard currency that could be used by farmers to buy their own fuel, fertiliser and imported materials, Gono said.
He said the price crackdown had caused fear and mistrust between the government and businesses and called for what he called for ”a spirit of reconciliation and healing” in the economy.
He said many of the nation’s economic difficulties were self-inflicted, including the price cuts and a programme to seize control of white and foreign-owned businesses.
In August last year, the central bank slashed three zeros from the currency and issued new denominations of notes after basic transactions became unmanageable and calculators and accounting systems could no longer cope with amounts traded.
Independent estimates put real inflation closer to 25 000% and the International Monetary Fund has forecast it reaching 100 000% by the end of the year. Bundles of bank notes are again common in basic purchases.
Gono said the zeros had now returned, again making transactions unwieldy. He said a new currency would be issued possibly in the next two weeks but gave no further details.
”It’s a process that could turn into a hurricane for those who keep cash outside the banking system,” Gono said. In the rampant black market, ”cash barons and dealers are in the habit of creating mini central banks in their homes”.
Gono said the printing of extra money, now a routine practice, contributed to inflation and was against ”basic textbook economics”.
”We are living in extraordinary times and extraordinary measures are needed. Once we are out of the corner, we will have no problem formulating policy playing by the book. But for now, the game is one of survival,” he said. – Reuters, Sapa-AP