SADC Seeks An End To Zimbabwe's Economic Problems

By Eddyson Lugangwa Posted 27 April 2006 @ 01:24 pm EET     Print     Reprint     E-Mail     Comments

Nairobi (IBTimes.com) - Southern African states will be asking the international co-operating partners to support Zimbabwe in its efforts to get out of its economic woes, Botswana's Minister of Finance and Development Planning Baledzi Gaolathe has said.

At a joint press briefing of African ministers at the close of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Spring Meetings here, Gaolathe said members of the Southern African Development (SADC) were concerned and also felt affected by the current problems in Zimbabwe.

"If any member within SADC has economic or whatever other problem, all of us are affected, and therefore we have to work co-operatively to try to solve those," Gaolothe said.

Gaolothe, who is also current chairperson of the Council of Ministers Of SADC, said in the coming week member states would be having consultative meetings with co-operating partners in Namibia at which support for various initiatives and programmes will be tabled.

"In this respect, we will be asking our international co-operating partner to support Zimbabwe in its efforts to get out of the problems it is confronting now. Specifically, because we are in the IMF, you are aware that dialogue is always in the process of opening," Gaolothe said.

"I think Zimbabwe was having a problem of arrears which they have now sorted out. It is our hope that in the coming months, the two sides will make some progress because one of the hindrances to recovery for Zimbabwe is a shortage of foreign exchange, balance of payments problems, where IMF can play a major role."

He said it was the hope of African leaders that now that Zimbabwe was up-to-date with its payments, there would be progress in that regard. Gaolothe, giving an update on the SADC region's move towards Establishing a free trade zone, said the target for reaching free trade status was 2008. He said by 2011, SADC should have reached Customs Union status where all countries should have a common tariff.

"Beyond that, we should be working toward a common market. When we reach that stage, there should be a freer movement of labour across the region. At the moment, although this has been removed, there is generally free movement of people, but we see they have their work permits and the like," Gaolothe said.

Senegal's Minister of Economy, Finance, and Planning, Abdoulaye Diop, hailed Africa's economic performance which he said had registered significant growth rates never seen before.

The performance had made it possible to achieve rates of five per cent, and the prospects for 2006 are five per cent or above, according to IMF projections.

Diop further noted that the Spring Meetings had taken place at a time when African countries had a chance to review their positions within the Bretton Woods Institutions with regard to representation.

"At a time when we are benefiting from debt forgiveness, there is also a question of debt relief for some other countries," he said. He also revealed that in West Africa there had been efforts towards making operational, the West African Economic and Monetary Union which is an economic union of eight countries that have a common currency, economic and monetary . Also in attendance at the joint briefing was Jean-Claude Masangu Mulongo, Governor of the Central Bank of Congo and Antoinette Sayeh, Minister of Finance of Liberia.

Sayeh, who has just been in the job for two months after leaving the World Bank, said Liberia had drawn up an interim 150-day programme to re-establish all structures to ensure sound operations of its economy.

This, she said, includes putting in place accountability institutions, reviewing the revenue collection measures and dealing with corruption. "As many of you know, Liberia is just emerging from 17 years of very brutal conflict, and the new government is entering its third month this month," she said.

"Liberia is a devastated place, is a broken economy in many, many ways. We are in the process of discussing with the Fund in particular a programme that will help us to re-establish basic financial management institutions and to get control over our expenditures and revenues in a way that there has not been for many, many years."

On corruption, Sayeh said the vice had been a major issue in Liberia on the part of government officials as well as in the private sector when it comes to revenues.