(TALKZIMBABWE) Malawi presses Zimbabwe over $200m debt
Malawi presses Zimbabwe over $200m debtThis article was written by Our reporter on 19 May, at 17 : 29 PM
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The Malawi government has sent a delegation to Zimbabwe to demand payment of maize sales worth US$20 million which Malawi sold to Zimbabwe early 2011 under late President Bingu wa Mutharika. Malawian Minister of Energy Cassim Chilumpha said the money would help Malawi to ease its fuel shortages.
“The delegation left Thursday (May 17) to collect the money which we believe will play a crucial role in helping us buy fuel,” said Chilumpha.
Malawi sold 66, 000 tons of maize to Zimbabwe under the late President Mutharika.
According to a report in the Nyasa Times newspaper on Friday, Chilumpha said the delegation had been promised $12 million and the balance would be settled later.
Malawi in 2007 also gave Zimbabwe a “soft loan” of $100 million while still under the leadership of the late President Mutharika. Harare only repaid $76 million.
The economic situation in Malawi had deteriorated under President Mutharika and relations with the west and international donors had become frosty.
New President Joyce Banda has sought to restore relations with the international community, especially the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
[And doesn't that make perfect sense? Malawi has been impoverished by the IMF, it's farmers and entprereneurs are being starved of cash to develop their businesses and their markets, because of IMF and World Bank policies that exclusively benefit the transnational corporations and their trillionair banking dynasty owners, so they can maximize the value they drag out of Malawi and other African and European countries. That is why Malawi is 'impoverished'. And now ordinary Malawian savers and earners have lost 1/3 of their purchasing power overnight, just to please the IMF more. - MrK]
The official rate of Malawi’s currency has been cut by a third as the impoverished southern African nation seeks to repair ties with the IMF.
The move is just one in a series of steps President Banda’s government has taken that sharply distinguish her administration from that of her predecessor.
[Indeed. - MrK]
After taking office, Banda had pledged to repair a relationship the IMF had called “off track.” The late President Mutharika had rejected IMF advice to devalue the kwacha.
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Last week, in another departure from the past, Banda had expressed wariness at welcoming her Sudanese counterpart, accused of war crimes, to a continental summit in July.
Speaking at a news conference Friday, Banda said a visit by Sudan’s president would be frowned upon by Malawi’s international donors, an argument Sudan criticized in a statement.
But she said the final decision on whether he will be invited to an African Union summit “will have to be arrived at through a consultative process.”
Mutharika had welcomed Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir at a regional summit last year and accused the International Criminal Court of targeting Africans.
The Sudanese leader has visited African, Asian and Middle Eastern countries despite ICC warrants for his arrest on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Sudan’s Darfur region.
Banda also has reshuffled her Cabinet, ousting, among others, Peter Mutharika, the late president’s brother who had been foreign minister.
Malawi’s relations with foreign donors had been strained under the Mutharikas.
The late president had expelled Britain’s High Commissioner to Malawi after the envoy was quoted in a local newspaper expressing concern that the president was increasingly intolerant of criticism and that human rights were under attack. Britain, a former ruler of Malawi, then indefinitely suspended aid to Malawi, which in the end invited the envoy back.
Earlier this year, a U.S. aid agency that rewards good governance suspended $350 million worth of assistance to Malawi.
As her predecessor’s vice president, Banda had resisted his efforts to promote his brother over her as his anointed successor, which many saw as a ploy by the former President Mutharika to extend his influence beyond the constitutionally allowed two terms.
Labels: BINGU WA MUTHARIKA, JOYCE BANDA, NEOLIBERALISM, SANCTIONS
posted by MrK @ 3:25 PM
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