1. I’ve been reading the latest issue of @Africa_Conf the much respected journal on continental affairs. Finance Minister made a desperate May Day call to international financial institutions earlier this month saying the government & economy are are at risk of imminent collapse
2. In the letter to the IMF, World Bank & AFDB, @MthuliNcube reportedly pleads for a rescue package in return for political & economic reforms. The people at these organisations are not impressed by these repeat promises which are described as “hollow”.
3. Ncube reportedly threatens that without funds from IFIs, “the government will have no choice but to revert to printing money, risking a return to hyperinflation and the crash of the local currency.” But they have been printing money already, elctronic money which is looted.
4. In the letter Ncube warns that “A domestic collapse also would have potentially adverse regional effects, where spillovers are significant.” He is merely repeating what has been said countless times by many observers. The Zimbabwean crisis has already impacted neighbours.
5. Ncube’s promise of ‘time-bound programme’ of economic, political and governance reforms under the ZANU PF regime is as hollow as Africa Confidential’s IFI sources think. The cabal that is benefiting from the looting & grand corruption has no incentive to stop & reform.
6. In any event, the regime doesn’t need a rescue package in order to implement reforms. Why should a leadership want a bribe to do its work; to do things that it is expected to do? “Give us money & we will reform”, Ncube is saying, instead of “We have reformed please help”.
7. “Ncube’s final pledge to continue with ‘engaging in National Dialogue’ elicited the response of ‘what dialogue?’ from an official in Washington,” reports Africa Confidential, a reminder that no one beyond their little circle takes ED’s puppet show called POLAD seriously.
8. The IFIs haven’t formally responded to Ncube & Africa Confidential’s IFI source says “Zimbabwe is in a political, not an economic policy, crisis ...without credible change on that level, nothing else will move”. This echoes what many of us have been saying: Fix the politics!
9. Instead of fixing this political crisis the regime is exacerbating it by directing another puppet show aimed at annihilating the main opposition party using a coterie of state and non-state actors, under the hollow cover of some legitimate political processes.
