Gono calls for reforms after great IMF escape

Gono calls for reforms after great IMF escape

• Zimbabwe raises further US$50m for IMF

• IMF team leaves Zim ahead of board meeting

• Zimbabwe reveals source of IMF payments

• Zimbabwe pays IMF US$120 million

• IMF team still locked in Zim talks

• IMF team in Zimbabwe for talks

• IMF team says Zimbabwe outlook bleak

• Mugabe goes begging in China

• Zimbabwe faces economic meltdown

• IMF further delays Zim expulsion

• IMF shelves Zim expulsion

• 'Gono inflation target achievable' - Standard Bank

• Zim inflation deeps below 450pc

• Zim reports 78pc drop in inflation

• IMF team on surveillance mission in Zim

• Makamba nabbed in corruption blitz

By Staff Reporter

ZIMBABWE'S central bank chief said the country needed radical economic reforms after securing another six-month reprieve on possible expulsion from the International Monetary Fund, state media reported on Sunday.

Gideon Gono, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor who has been charged with turning the country's limping economy around, said the threat of expulsion was a wake-up call to solve the economic crisis.

"The close range in the voting is indicative of how serious and close the country had gone towards being expelled and how critical it is for Zimbabwe to urgently implement radical policy measures that will stabilise and grow the economy," Gono told the Sunday Mail from Washington.

On Friday, the IMF's executive board postponed a judgment on Zimbabwe's future membership of the fund, but pledged to revisit the issue within six months.

Critics blame the policies of President Robert Mugabe's government, such as the seizure of land from white commercial farmers to resettle blacks, for accelerating the country's economic crisis.

The IMF says the central bank's substantial producer and credit subsidies, high government expenditure, a dual exchange rate and administrative controls have helped undermine a once vibrant southern African economy.

The IMF board, which has twice put off expelling Zimbabwe, said it had deferred acting on the country's membership because of recent payments of arrears and some small exchange rate and monetary policy steps.

Zimbabwe, which has been in continuous arrears to the IMF since February 2001, paid the fund $120 million two weeks ago but still owes about $175 million.

The unexpected payment raised questions about how the government had raised the money when the country was facing a shortage of foreign currency.
Six years of rapid economic decline have left Zimbabwe with an unemployment rate of more than 70 percent, triple-digit inflation and acute food and fuel shortages.

Mugabe, in power since Zimbabwe's independence in 1980, denies he has misruled the country and says opponents of his land reforms have sabotaged the economy - Reuters
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