Zimbabwe's Finance ministerTendai Biti said Wednesday that Harare's plea for financial support wasreceiving positive response from the international community with somecountries pledging various lines of credit to help Zimbabwean banks. Hararesays it needs at least eight billion dollars over the next three years tojumpstart its economy, which has the world's highest inflation. This comesafter long time President Robert Mugabe said he is pleased with the cooperationin the new unity government.
Political analyst George Mkwananzi tells reporterPeter Clottey that Zimbabweans are expressing optimism about their government'sefforts so far.
"Obviouslyit is a piece of good news and quite refreshing coming against the backdrop ofa lot of suffering in Zimbabwe. But we don't know for sure whether these thingswill translate themselves into visible financial aid which is going to flowinto Zimbabwe. But trusting that the minister is telling us the truth then weobviously welcome and embrace it as good news. Zimbabweans need that kind ofaid they need the assistance so that they can have their dignity restored andthey reclaim their face under the sun," Mkwananzi pointed out.
He said many Zimbabweans hadto leave the country in droves because conditions became unbearable.
"The situation in Zimbabwehad gotten to a level where it had become practically disastrous to live inthat country. It was suicidal to be a resident of Zimbabwe and that is why manypeople had to pour outside the borders of the country into neighboringcountries because they had to escape the disease, the lack of services, basicservices, lack of commodities including the collapse of education and thehealth sector," he said.
Mkwananzi said it would begreat for Zimbabwe's economy when regional and international financial supportbegin to pour into the country.
"If lines of credit are openfor Zimbabwe so that they can begin to reconstruct and restructure all thecollapsed infrastructure then it is going to give confidence that the countryis on the road to recovery, and perhaps it will even encourage doubtful foreigninvestors to also take interest in Zimbabwe and then put their money there,"Mkwananzi noted.
He said long time leaderPresident Mugabe is a major cause of the country's financial crisis.
"Robert Mugabe has been thegreatest stumbling block on Zimbabwe's progress and recovery particularly byappearing to frustrate and thwart whatever efforts were being made by hiscounterpart in the MDC (opposition Movement for Democratic Change) to get thecountry to recover. And also recently by encouraging fresh farm evasion andwith this statement that he has issued lately, it would appear that he can seethat if his colleagues in government from the other party are given enoughspace and enough authority without being hindered and inhibited then they willcause a lot of progressive developments to occur in the country which will beto the benefit of everybody including himself," he said.
So far some countries have been reluctant to releasedonor aid to Zimbabwe over policydifferences with long time ruler President Robert Mugabe. They want to seepolitical reforms put in place before resuming support. But Zimbabwe's strongneighbor South Africa as well as other countries and banks have promisedfunding, and some undisclosed amount in lines of credit to help with the unity government'sefforts at restarting the shattered economy.
Meanwhilegovernment figures show that ordinary Zimbabweanshave been seeing a slight fall in the price of everyday items since it allowedshops to abandon the local currency.
Hyper-inflation has destroyedthe value of the Zimbabwe dollar, but the new unity government of PresidentRobert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has raised hopes of rescuingthe once prosperous country. Previous official figures showed inflation at 231million per cent in July, but economists said it rose far higher.