Opinion / Columnist
Chinamasa confess Zanu PF borrowed and never paid back
11 Sep 2014 at 06:15hrs | Views
The Harare meeting where Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa promised to reveal all the details of the mega-deals Zimbabwe signed with china last week has turned out to be a none-event. The Minister announced a few more deals worth a few hundred million dollars, nothing much really.
The sum total of the Chinese mega-deals Mugabe and Chinamasa were wittering and so secretive about turns out to be all bluff? This is laughable!
All those who had hoped against hope to see something good to come out of the China trip must be cursing for having been so naive and stupid and fall for the regime's hype!
There is absolutely nothing in this announcement to show why the economic meltdown should even slow down. The economic meltdown is now like python with all its coils wrapped round Mugabe and it is starting to squeeze the breath out of its prey.
Mugabe has lorded over his Zanu PF party members, toying with them and made them look like complete fools for 34 years. He has bamboozled Tsvangirai and his MDC friends into doing nothing about implementing the reforms for five years. He has rigged all the elections since 1980 denying the whole nation a meaningful vote. For once in his whole life here is something he cannot cheat, bamboozle, rig or intimidate in any way – the national economy.
34 year of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption by his regimes have taken their toll on the national economy and now it is in terminal collapse. Mugabe will have to step down or the economy will continue to sink and it will pull him down with it!
The only thing on note the Minister told his audience of how utterly untrustworthy the regime is when it comes to borrowing money and paying it back.
"We had been borrowing from the Chinese financial institutions and as soon as we borrowed, we never went back, even to tell them that we had some challenges which prevented us from honouring the commitments. They wondered what kind of debtors we were," Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa told business leaders in Harare.
"In the first six months of this year we have had to cough up $180 million, which was not in the budget, just to make ourselves look good."
In 2000 the IMF and the WB stopped granting Zimbabwe any more loans or grants because the Mugabe regime was not servicing its debts. All the other Western Institutions soon followed the IMF's lead.
Over the Mugabe has pointed refused to admit it was because of his regime's failure to service its debt that all West sourced debt facilities with Zimbabwe were cancelled. He has maintained they were cancelled because the West disapproved his policies especially his land redistribution which took land away from the white farmers to give to blacks.
Now it turns out that the regime's Chinese friends too wanted their debts serviced; the regime was forced cough out millions to "look good" or Mugabe's recent trip to China would not have happened!
Before Mugabe's August trip to China Zimbabwe's debt to China stood at $1 billion and the regime was struggling to service that. Mugabe has since signed deals worth $2 billion on the trip, increasing the debt three fold, and this is happening at a time Zimbabwe's national economy has shrunk significantly and continues to shrink fast. So if at $ 1 billion debt the Minister was forced to take the "as soon as we borrowed, we never went back" position; now that the debt is $3 billion has he torn out the page with his Chinese visa never ever to go back to China!
Just as well the Chinese did not grant Mugabe the $27 billion he was asking for ZimAsset; Minister Chinamasa would have been obliged to shoot himself just to be absolutely sure he will never go back to China!
With such untrustworthy debtor, of course there was no way the Chinese were going to give Mugabe a blank cheque. Still Zimbabwe will be paying an arm and a leg to service the $3 billion debt; the price of having junk credit rating is very high interest rate charges.
In other words Zimbabwe would have been better having a stable government first before borrowing any money for any of these Chinese funded projects!
Still, there is nothing in the Chinese mega-deals to slow down the economic meltdown that has been affecting the country since the rigged July 2013 elections. Mugabe had placed all his hopes on China bankrolling his ZimAsset economic recovery plan; he has come back empty handed. As long as this Mugabe regime remains in office the economic meltdown is set to get worse. The economic meltdown has wrapped round the regime like a python and it is starting to squeeze.
This regime will be forced to step down or the people, sick and tired of a regime that has brought them nothing but misery and hardship, will finally kick it out as the Libyans did with Gaddafi's regime!
The sum total of the Chinese mega-deals Mugabe and Chinamasa were wittering and so secretive about turns out to be all bluff? This is laughable!
All those who had hoped against hope to see something good to come out of the China trip must be cursing for having been so naive and stupid and fall for the regime's hype!
There is absolutely nothing in this announcement to show why the economic meltdown should even slow down. The economic meltdown is now like python with all its coils wrapped round Mugabe and it is starting to squeeze the breath out of its prey.
Mugabe has lorded over his Zanu PF party members, toying with them and made them look like complete fools for 34 years. He has bamboozled Tsvangirai and his MDC friends into doing nothing about implementing the reforms for five years. He has rigged all the elections since 1980 denying the whole nation a meaningful vote. For once in his whole life here is something he cannot cheat, bamboozle, rig or intimidate in any way – the national economy.
34 year of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption by his regimes have taken their toll on the national economy and now it is in terminal collapse. Mugabe will have to step down or the economy will continue to sink and it will pull him down with it!
The only thing on note the Minister told his audience of how utterly untrustworthy the regime is when it comes to borrowing money and paying it back.
"We had been borrowing from the Chinese financial institutions and as soon as we borrowed, we never went back, even to tell them that we had some challenges which prevented us from honouring the commitments. They wondered what kind of debtors we were," Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa told business leaders in Harare.
"In the first six months of this year we have had to cough up $180 million, which was not in the budget, just to make ourselves look good."
In 2000 the IMF and the WB stopped granting Zimbabwe any more loans or grants because the Mugabe regime was not servicing its debts. All the other Western Institutions soon followed the IMF's lead.
Over the Mugabe has pointed refused to admit it was because of his regime's failure to service its debt that all West sourced debt facilities with Zimbabwe were cancelled. He has maintained they were cancelled because the West disapproved his policies especially his land redistribution which took land away from the white farmers to give to blacks.
Now it turns out that the regime's Chinese friends too wanted their debts serviced; the regime was forced cough out millions to "look good" or Mugabe's recent trip to China would not have happened!
Before Mugabe's August trip to China Zimbabwe's debt to China stood at $1 billion and the regime was struggling to service that. Mugabe has since signed deals worth $2 billion on the trip, increasing the debt three fold, and this is happening at a time Zimbabwe's national economy has shrunk significantly and continues to shrink fast. So if at $ 1 billion debt the Minister was forced to take the "as soon as we borrowed, we never went back" position; now that the debt is $3 billion has he torn out the page with his Chinese visa never ever to go back to China!
Just as well the Chinese did not grant Mugabe the $27 billion he was asking for ZimAsset; Minister Chinamasa would have been obliged to shoot himself just to be absolutely sure he will never go back to China!
With such untrustworthy debtor, of course there was no way the Chinese were going to give Mugabe a blank cheque. Still Zimbabwe will be paying an arm and a leg to service the $3 billion debt; the price of having junk credit rating is very high interest rate charges.
In other words Zimbabwe would have been better having a stable government first before borrowing any money for any of these Chinese funded projects!
Still, there is nothing in the Chinese mega-deals to slow down the economic meltdown that has been affecting the country since the rigged July 2013 elections. Mugabe had placed all his hopes on China bankrolling his ZimAsset economic recovery plan; he has come back empty handed. As long as this Mugabe regime remains in office the economic meltdown is set to get worse. The economic meltdown has wrapped round the regime like a python and it is starting to squeeze.
This regime will be forced to step down or the people, sick and tired of a regime that has brought them nothing but misery and hardship, will finally kick it out as the Libyans did with Gaddafi's regime!
Source - Wilbert Mukori
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