Biti - Mthuli Ncube to lock horns over IMF funding

MDC Vice President Tendai Biti and the Minister of Finance Mthuli Ncube are expected to participate in a heated economics debate on Tuesday organized by the Zimbabwe Economics Society under the theme:  Why Zimbabwe should welcome the SDR recently allocated by the IMF. What are the lessons from Zimbabwe's own history on these and what are the lessons from other Sub-Saharan countries as well as the developed world?

Zimbabwe recently got an allocation of Special Drawing Rights (SDR) amounting to US$961 million (about R14 billion).

Guests for the virtual event that will start at 17:30pm are Mthuli Ncube, Tendai Biti, and Dr. Herbert Murerwa. The discussant will be Dr. Eddie Mahembe.

According to its website, the Zimbabwe Economics Society (ZES) was founded by economists in the 1960s as the Rhodesian Economics Society (RES).

It was transformed into the Zimbabwe Economics Society at the country's Independence in 1980.

It was mainly based at the University of Zimbabwe being the single university in the country at that point.

The Society had vibrancy during the early years of independence through to the late 1990s as the economy went through various transformative episodes with membership drawn mainly from intellectual economists.

The Society's membership however was and still is open to other professionals that are interested in the economic discourse of the country.

In the early 2000s Zimbabwe went through an economic downturn and many of the active members migrated into the diaspora which resulted in the Society becoming dormant for a prolonged period stretching to 2019 when members began work on reviving it.