Zimbabwe Social Democrats call on European Investment Bank to cancel indirect loans to Mugabe regime
Press Released Sunday 15 June 2014.
According to recent reports, the European Investment Bank (EIB) is considering extending loans to Zimbabwe’s private sector but not to the Zimbabwe government. Whilst this is would be welcome news under normal circumstance this is not so in Zimbabwe’s present situation.
Zimbabwe’s private sector, like the public sector and the nation at large, is suffering greatly because of the serious economic meltdown brought on following decades of economic mismanagement and corruption. The Mugabe regime has stubbornly refused to implement meaningful political and economic reforms necessary for economic recovery.
The EIB loans to the private sector will help them paid they ballooning electricity bills, for example. This will not encourage the power utility company, ZESA, and the regime controlling and running it to address the underlying causes of the soaring cost of energy – mismanagement and corruption. In other words the loans will ultimately go to subsidise the mismanagement and corruption.
It is not just European Union that has stopped giving the Zimbabwe regime any form of financial assistance, other nations have stopped too. The decision was born out of the need to pressure the regime to accept the necessary reform to stop the criminal waste of resources. EIB’s indirect loan to the regime will encourage it to believe it can continue to rule without implementing the reforms.
Whilst the European Union has put its foot down in getting some of its own member countries like Greece and Spain to implement economic reforms considered necessary for economic growth; it is disappointing to note that the EU should be undermining calls for similarly reforms in Zimbabwe.
Conclusion
Although the EIB funds will be given to Zimbabwe’s private sector and not the Mugabe regime; the funds will be indirect subsidies to the regime and easy pressure on it to end the mismanagement, corruption and to implement the reforms necessary to attract donors and foreign investors. Zimbabwe needs the regime to implement the reforms as a matter of great urgency; no among of foreign aid can save the private sector in the long run without first implementing the reforms!
Signed. Wilbert Mukori
Secretary General
Zimbabwe Social Democrats
zimbabwesocialdemocrats@gmail.com
COMMENTS
I doubt these much shouted about loans will ever materialise
Not if the lender has any brains
@ Andy
The Belgians, who are the ones pushing hard to re-engage with Zimbabwe, have their eyes on Zimbabwe’s diamonds and they know they will recoup whatever EIB dishes out ten fold in the first year alone! They know the private sector is fighting for dear life and as long as the criminal waste by Zanu PF continues more and more companies will be forced out of business and so EIB will never recover a penny from the loans. Of course the EU will see to it that the people of Zimbabwe never forget the EIB’s generosity but will never mention who much the EU earned in return!
Yes, Euib must be told that we have learnt the hard way. They can continue with their plan because they have quite a lot of money, we the ‘private sector’ know, as much as they do, that these funds will end up in banks for Chinamasa to check his priority list. A trip to Singapore would take almort half of that. Euib must explain how one can channel funds to a ‘private sector’ of another country without gvt knowing about it. It’s only China who can do that
The curse of the diamonds! And what private sector? The ZPF has muscled their way into the said sector and so anyone with anything between their ears will know where the money will go.
@ Kunyarara
Indeed if Zimbabwe had used the generous windfall from the sale of Marange and Chiadzwa diamonds wisely the country will have finance many, many projects from its own resources without having to borrow from anyone. Whatever the EIB gives to Zimbabwe, it will be a fraction of what the nation is losing in corrupt diamonds deals in one month alone.
In other words it would make better financial sense to forgo the EIB loans and stop corruption then accept EIB loans and allow corruption to continue! Only the real myopic people will not see this- needless to say we have plenty of such people!
@ Chaka
After spending millions subsidising the Mugabe regime’s mismanagement and corruption one hopes that the EIB will have the common sense to write off the loans and not expect a penny to be paid back!
If the private sector do receive any funds they will be promptly nationalised ( ie ownership taken over by a big wig).
Anyone who does not support the initiative of helping the Zimbabwean Industry is supporting unemployemnt and suffering of the innocent people of Zimbabwe. Our youths need jobs and our mothers need to eat.
@ Africanson
What has destroyed the nation’s economy over the 34 years is the mismanagement and corruption. In the 1980s these were a baby elephant for the ox, the private sector, to carry; now the baby has grown into a monster bull elephant. Any financial help the private sector gets will sooner or later end up be-ing wasted as long as there is mismanagement and corruption, there will be little left to create new jobs.
Mugabe has resisted dealing with the mismanagement and corruption all these years because there are an important part of his patronage system that has kept him and Zanu PF in power. He will certain continue to resist ending the system that has served him so well and an offer subsidise the system will only encourage him to resist ending the system.
There is a limit to how much the EIB will pay the private sector, when the loans stop the private sector will be back to where we are today and having to carry the bull elephant alone!
We need to have a more realistic and holistic approach the nation’s problems. We have been kicking the can down the road for 34 years just to avoid telling Mugabe that he has failed and have paid dearly for that folly. How much longer are we doing to do this?
Giving money to shore up gangsters is tantamount to aiding a repressive regime. This is what Europe did when they propped up Nazi Germany or Mussolini? Are you trying to get more out of Zimbabwe than mere token handouts .I smell a rat behind the curtain.
Are you really Zimbos you people? Honestly how can you say such evil things? Here in Zim we are crying for FDI to resuscitate the ailing economy so that we get jobs inorder to feed ourselves yet some are demanding that the status-quo prevails. umunthu womunyama bakiti
@ Injiba yeGoli
Yes we all want to see Zimbabwe prosper; the challenge here is how are we going to achieve that. What some of us are saying is we must address the basic problems like mismanagement and corruption that landed the nation in this mess first BEFORE we throw more money at the problem.
For 34 years Mugabe has lied that there was no corruption allowing the problem to grow to the point where it is killing the economy.
This is like someone denying they have cancer and thus allowing the tumour to grow and spread. We have now reached the point where the patient is in ICU we must remove the tumour and stop wasting time giving him painkillers. EIB giving the private sector money in this situation is the equivalent of giving the sick man Viagra tablets.
Yes the poor man’s sex drive has been below normal but it is not why he is in the ICU nor will the Viagra cure the cancer! Just because the sex drive is easier to treat is no excuse for not dealing with what everyone knows is the real problem here.
It is corruption that is killing the national economy; we should stop wasting time and resources faffing about. Everyone knows only Mugabe can do something to end corruption, but has chosen not to because it is part of his political patronage system that has kept him in power. For 34 years we have waited for him to act contend to do whatever else in our power regardless of how totally useless and pointless that might be!
After 34 years of Mugabe denying there was no corruption when the evidence was there for all to see. Corruption has now become so rampant it is impossible not to see the mountain of evidence. Only someone who is breathtakingly naïve and stupid would fail to see that corruption is the country’s number one problem. Only someone who is breathtakingly naïve, stupid and cowardly would want to address every other problem because they would not want to deal with corruption and the tyrant, Mugabe, behind it. It would be folly to abandon reason and follow the cowardly fool!
yeGoli, yes we ARE Zimbabweans,
and that is why we demand that
Mugabe get nothing of the EUIB
loans. As always, ZPF and their
Chief Mugarbage, will loot it and
leave Zimbabwe broke again!
Injiba yegoli, what is ‘umuntu womunyama’? Talk ur language n don’t spoil our Ndebele. It’s called injiva n not injiba. It’s no wonder why you support Euib giving loan to Mugabe. You must be one of the looters
ZANUPF=corruption, good ol’ African style. RGM will stuff his mattress with loot, the usual suspects will stuff their various adulterous mattresses and laugh at Zims who couldn’t raise an arm against such nation-wide self-serving destruction. Belgium does have form in African. Beware their presence. Belgium is not a Zim charity.