Former South African President Zuma Criticizes IMF For Withholding Credit From Zimbabwe

Former South African President, Jacob Zuma, has criticised the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for its 2001 decision to withhold credit facilities from Zimbabwe, describing it as unjust.

Speaking at the Africa Voluntary Carbon Credits Market Forum in Victoria Falls where he was representing the Belarus Africa Foreign Trade Association (BAFTA), Zuma praised Zimbabwe’s leadership for exhibiting unique qualities to internally solve its challenges and proffer tangible solutions to the continent. He commended Zimbabwe for its participation in the climate economy through the AVCCMF, which has set the tone for Africa Agenda 2063. He said:

You will recall that it was in 2001 when the International Monetary Fund, declared Zimbabwe unsuitable to access its resources.

The irony of the International Monetary Fund, shows that their decision was wrong and unfair, because the people of Zimbabwe have shown qualities of wisdom, innovation and creativity.

Under the Zimbabwean leadership, in the identification, adoption and implementation of this platform of trading Carbon Credits, Zimbabweans have proved beyond reasonable doubt, that they are more than capable of addressing the problems facing Zimbabwe and the entire African continent.

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Some Context:

IMF withheld credit facilities from Zimbabwe over arrears. After clearing its $107.9m debt to the IMF in 2016, Zimbabwe’s Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube, known as “the IMF man”, embarked on a programme in 2018 to pay off other debts owed to the World Bank and the AfDB, resulting in a shortage of funds to run domestic affairs. The idea of paying the money was meant to unlock new credit facilities from IMF.

However, in March 2020, the IMF announced that Zimbabwe did not qualify for the $50bn IMF facility to cushion low-income countries impacted by the coronavirus. The regular programmes that the IMF offered member countries impacted by COVID-19 were not available to any country with arrears to international financial institutions such as the World Bank, AfDB, and the European Development Bank.

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