GNU reopens dialogue with UNDP

ZIMBABWE should brace itself for funding with strings attached from either the Southern African Development Community (SADC) or the United Nations as the country’s coffers are virtually empty.
As the country moves towards fresh voting, government has learnt the hard way after failing to raise poll funds at this late hour.
With the domestic economy lurching from one crisis to another, it has been difficult for Treasury to raise election monies through taxes.
To start with, the economy is deep in the throes of a serious liquidity crisis that has not been helped by the threat     of company closures in the event  that taxation levels are raised on the   few surviving companies which are operating way below full capacity utilisation.
Consequently, the government is pinning its hopes on external funding, which has not been forthcoming as well.
This has forced the Government of National Unity to revive its bid to get poll funding from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) despite the fact that ZANU-PF had bulked at the idea about two months ago in order to escape the conditions tied to the funding.
SADC, at its summit on Saturday, will also consider Zimbabwe’s poll funding crisis.
But diplomatic sources this week said the 15-member SADC will insist on reforms and consensus by the major political actors in Zimbabwe before it could open its purse.
On Tuesday, Finance Minister Tendai Biti told The Financial Gazette that the country’s poll coffers were still dry. Biti was meant to hold a crisis meeting with President Robert Mugabe yesterday to discuss the issue.
The Finance Minister said besides touching on possible SADC funding, his meeting with President Mugabe would also discuss the UNDP initiative.
He said the President had not ruled out funding from the UNDP, but claimed that Justice and Legal Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa, who was not immediately available for comment, was throwing spanners into the works.
“The UN issue is not dead and tomorrow I’m meeting the President over that issue. There is just one individual Chinamasa who is a problem and I have said to him ‘don’t come to me when you are drunk’. I do not know if they sell mbanje in Rusape,” said Biti.
“I am not the spokesperson for SADC, but only a fool would offer assistance without insurance that it (the money) won’t go down the drain. I know that there is no head of State in SADC who is a fool.”
Last week, Biti told Members of Parliament that hardliners in ZANU-PF who are not comfortable with   UN funding had threatened any UN team that comes to the country for inspection with arrest.