Biti’s HIPC another Esap

February 7 2009
In recent months there have been shrill calls for Zimba-bweans to declare total bankruptcy, allow Western governments to tie a leash around our necks and surrender the nation’s fate to the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative.

The calls reached a crescendo in Harare last week during a debt repayment workshop with Finance Minister Tendai Biti trying to sell this idea, but there were no takers.

Although Minister Biti has tabled various proposals on how the nation could tackle its US$5,7 billion external debt, he has made it clear that he favours the HIPC route, which he says is ideal because it is the most holistic and viable approach.
As a public officer in charge of the national purse, Mr Biti has a responsibility to be honest, truthful and accountable to the people of Zimbabwe. His pronouncements on matters of public policy must be beyond reproach. That is what the taxpayers expect and that is what the Constitution of the republic demands.

One is struck by the poor level of debate on such a topic of immense national importance. The level of public awareness and alertness on the HIPC debate is next to zero. As a result, we can expect politicians to monopolise the discourse and make unilateral decisions that will have far-reaching implications on the socio-economic well-being of present and future generations. How can this be allowed to happen in a free and democratic society?

Citizens deserve all the facts. Politicians must tell us, for instance, that HIPC does not lead to outright debt cancellation overnight. It is merely designed to restore our ability to repay our loans, meaning that the debt trap, as we know it, will remain firmly in place.

Politicians must also tell the people of Zimbabwe that the nation, in order to qualify for HIPC status, must institute a tough economic structural adjustment programme (Esap).

Those who vividly remember Zimbabwe’s disastrous experimentation with Esap some two decades ago will tell you that these World Bank and IMF-sponsored programmes actually worsen poverty.

Surely Minister Biti is not being serious when he talks of bringing back Esap. The social suffering and economic dislocation that comes with Esap can be catastrophic and Zimba-bweans still bear the fresh scars.

Under the treacherously difficult conditionalities of Esap, the Government would be forced by the Bretton Woods mandarins to make drastic cuts in expenditure. In Zimbabwe’s case, such cuts would spell trouble because the nation is yet to recover from 10 years of economic decline.

When a government institutes stringent belt-tightening on a huge scale, the inevitable happens: the amounts allocated to health, education and public service salaries slow down to a trickle. Social unrest soon follows with devastating consequences for a nation that is still under a Western-sponsored regime change onslaught.

No one doubts that economic growth can be a viable means of reducing poverty, but such growth must not be pursued at the expense of human development needs.

Minister Biti’s HIPC proposal will not free us from our current debt trap. This is because the Western powers that got us into this problem in the first place are the same elements that now want to masquerade as our potential rescuers. What cheek!

The high priests of capitalism will not admit this, but the truth is that the debt trap that we find ourselves in is closely linked to colonialism, neo-colonialism and imperialist stratagems meant to ensure that Africans remain in perpetual servitude. That is why they are talking of “debt sustainability” instead of “debt cancellation”.

To fully qualify for HIPC, Zimbabwe would have to sell its parastatals, including strategic ones. Who stands to benefit from privatisation of State-owned enterprises? Foreign corporations and their local fronts. Most Zimbabweans would lose out because they have no capital to invest in such ventures.

But our billion-dollar question for Minister Biti is: How will your HIPC work amid these illegal Western sanctions?
This question refuses to be ignored. As long as the unjust sanctions remain in place, it is a waste of time talking of HIPC.
Before he starts peddling his HIPC idea, Minister Biti should tell the British government to scrap the evil sanctions.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband clearly told the world that Whitehall would only lift those illegal sanctions on the instruction of Mr Biti’s MDC-T.

His HIPC idea will remain a hard sell as long as the sanctions continue ruining the lives of innocent Zimbabweans.
For now, Minister Biti should forget about HIPC. There are other ways of building our economy without mortgaging our sovereignty. - The Sunday Mail Opinion