Zimbabwe pays further US$15m to IMF

Zimbabwe pays further US$15m to IMF

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By Staff Reporter

ZIMBABWE has paid an extra US$15 million towards its debt arrears to the IMF as the fund sends in a review team before a March deadline for the country to clear its debty.

The International Monetary Fund executive board in September gave Zimbabwe a six-month reprieve to settle its arrears or risk being expelled.

An IMF team was expected in Harare on Tuesday on a mission to review Zimbabwe's economic problems and programmes, and also to probe the source of money that President Robert Mugabe's cash- strapped government has used to pay its arrears to the fund.

The state-run Herald newspaper said on Tuesday that Zimbabwe -- which since September has paid the IMF $145 million -- forked out an additional $5 million last week after a $10 million payment in December "in a development that might see the country surviving expulsion".

The latest payment had left Zimbabwe needing just $14.6 million to clear its arrears under the IMF's critical General Resources Account and $125 under the Poverty Reduction Growth Facility, it said.

Zimbabwe's payments to the IMF have left observers wondering where it had secured the money, but central bank governor Gideon Gono has insisted the funds came from export earnings, inflows from expatriate Zimbabweans and locals working for foreign-owned organisations who are paid in foreign currency.

Zimbabwe is struggling with its worst economic crisis since independence from Britain in 1980, shown in food shortages, triple-digit inflation, a jobless rate above 70 percent and a foreign currency crunch that has spawned fuel shortages.

The crisis has been worsened by the withdrawal of aid by key donors who cited policy differences with Mugabe, especially his seizures of white-owned commercial farms for blacks - Reuters
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