Sunday, March 12, 2006

Printing money to keep afloat

A Zimbabwean Businessman, His Firms Seized, Takes On Mugabe: "'For a long time we have been expecting the Zimbabwean economy to implode,' said Todd Moss , a research fellow at the Washington-based Center for Global Development. 'It has been a mystery to us how the ruling party has been coming up with money to pay off some of its debts. The point is that it finances itself through a series of front companies. In the last 10 years the economy has gone backwards, so that the average income is what it was in 1953,' he said."

Mawere claims President Robert Mugabe has been printing money to keep his government afloat and that the money seized from Mawere's and other businesses is part of the money being paid to the IMF, which is supposed to be a champion of private property rights. Mugabe, 82, announced in 2004 that his government would demand half the shares in all the country's privately owned mines. "We cannot recognize absolute ownership of our resources. No!" he was quoted as saying.

No comments: