Zimbabwe has raised $120 million in a last-minute bid to avoid expulsion from the IMF, leaving analysts wondering on Thursday where President Robert Mugabe's cash-strapped government had secured the funds.
Zimbabwe announced the payment to the International Monetary Fund late on Wednesday ahead of an IMF meeting in Washington on September 9 to discuss the possible expulsion of the southern African country for a total of $295 million in unpaid arrears.
Central Bank Governor Gideon Gono told the official Herald newspaper on Thursday that Zimbabwe - mired in its worst economic crisis in decades - had raised the funds from foreign exchange within the country. "This is a modest payment meant to demonstrate our sincerity with respect to our international obligations," Gono said.
Gono said the payment was raised from exporters, who are required to sell part of their foreign exchange earnings to the central bank at supervised auctions, along with inflows from Zimbabweans based abroad and locals working for foreign-owned organisations, whose salaries are paid in foreign currency.
Economic analysts were sceptical, noting that Zimbabwe has seen desperate shortages of foreign exchange that have already caused serious fuel shortages.
They said overseas Zimbabweans, an important source of foreign exchange, were still largely bringing their money into the country through the black market where it can fetch double the official exchange rate. "The whole thing does not ring true, bearing in mind the figures Gono himself gave from the diaspora were pretty low. There's still a huge gap between what is going in and flowing out," said Anthony Hawkins, an economics professor at the University of Zimbabwe.
Mugabe's relations with western countries have soured over his seizure of white-owned farms for blacks and charges that his ruling ZANU-PF party has rigged recent elections.
Once the breadbasket of Southern Africa, Zimbabwe now sees regular food shortages while inflation has soared into triple digits and unemployment stands at more than 70 percent. After six years of recession, the economy has shrunk by nearly a third.
Zimbabwe has been talking to South Africa about a possible loan to help it with the IMF payment, along with purchases of food and fuel, and Gono said the discussions were still ongoing.
The Herald separately said it understood South Africa had been contemplating a payment of US $100 million directly to the IMF. But a source in President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party said the current IMF payment was partly covered by money from China, which Mugabe has courted as his relations with the West deteriorate.