Lelo Nxumalo

Perhaps now would be a good time to digest my transition to 'the real world' lest I forget. It was just over four years ago that I set foot in the 'New World', by way of Logan International Airport in Boston Massachusetts. I remember as though it was yesterday my first encounter with a person who would be my friend for the next four years - Yash. Yash got my name from a contact list that the office of international students had put together and circulated among incoming international freshman. We corresponded via email and eventually arranged to board the same Virgin Airlines jet to the United States of America. One memory that stands out is not a happy one, rather it was a reality check that we were not going to the land of milk and honey per se. Yash, who is from India, was pulled to the side by the TSA for their 'random' checks. You have to know Yash to understand when I say his demeanor throughout this ordeal was immaculate. I would have flipped. Random se...

I started work at the IMF on May 24th 2010, two days after graduation. The week before that was packed with things I absolutely needed to do before entering duty. On Monday the 17th (also my birthday) I traveled to the Big Apple to pick my visa from the Canadian Consulate in order to travel to Canada to apply for a G-4 visa to work at the Fund. I spent most of my birthday inside the Consulate. At lunch time I went to the Rockefeller Center and walked around the city looking for a suit for my commencement on May 22nd. I was the last person at the Consulate - for some reason the officers had misplaced my file. When I got the visa I set out for Canada. I called the Travel Office at the IMF to arrange my flight to Ottawa but it was a bit too late in the day. I left the US for Ottawa on the next day. Early Wednesday morning (May 19th) I literally walked into the embassy past the line (thanks to my semi-diplomatic status) to the G-4 window.The actual visa, however, was going to be ready on F...

IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Khan said in Kenya that the IMF as a changing institution is imagining a new AFRICA-IMF partnership. Khan was reinforcing the tone of the IMF-Africa meeting in Tanzania last year. As to what the new partnership looks like remains to be fully articulated. But I, like many, welcome the streamlining of fund-conditionality as well increased the policy space or country-ownership of development policy that the IMF is now promoting. To that end, I would like to encourage the Zimbabwe government to take advantage of this opportunity and strongly advocate for its Midterm Economic Plan launched late last year to the international community. As a student of international economics and development, the changing IMF presents a watershed event in global political economy. Instead of the 1980s/90s fiscal straight-jacket that the IMF pushed on struggling economies, the increased policy space now offered presents a strong platform for greater and meaningful international co...

Lush with US debt, and an insatiable thirst for raw materials the ‘factory floor’ of the world - China - continues to court resource-laden Africa. With a population of nearly 900 million, Africa constitutes an immense market for Chinese manufactured goods. It also provides a production platform for Chinese companies, or more precisely the Chinese government. China's policy of giving ‘no-strings-attached’ loans, however, undermines US efforts at promoting democracy on the continent. For example, Zimbabwe has the second largest platinum reserves in the world, but it is also. some might argue, home to one of the continent’s longest-serving dictators, Robert Mugabe. Because of Mugabe, the US and Europe pledged $500 million towards Zimbabwe’s recovery, a far cry from the requested $8 billion needed to bring the country back to pre-crisis output levels. Much to the West’s chagrin, China, because of its national interests in the Zimbabwe’s natural resources, and its 12 million-strong mark...

Perhaps after Mr. Obama’s job, the second most challenging role is that of the new Zimbabwean Minister of Finance, Tendai Biti. 2008 was one of the most challenging for the Zimbabwean economy, and indeed the global economy. The sharp increase in inflation against a background of acute shortages of goods and services, poor harvests and the attendant severe food shortages and the deteriorating delivery of public services such as water, electricity, sanitation and health imposed phenomenal hardships on the population. Needless to say, in order to decisively achieve economic turnaround, which regrettably would in the short and medium term be painful, cohesion and unity of purpose among the three political parties, and among institutions of government and business, as well as labor, o-operating partners and other stakeholders will be necessary if the country is ever to rebound. The 2009 Budget, presented to parliament at the end of the last fiscal year, seeks to respond to the various c...

Economic policymakers seek to achieve high employment, rapid growth and stable prices. I am most interested in the role of monetary policy – what it can contribute, and most importantly, how it should be conducted to contribute the most. It is a fact that there is strong correlation between central bank independence and effective output stabilization. At the heart of Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown is a central bank that has amassed a plethora of controls that go beyond its remit. Substantial quasi-fiscal activities by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) have been at the core of the country’s headline-making hyperinflation. Such activities include subsidies made to loss making government-owned enterprises, price supports given to some export sectors, and the interest payments made on open market operations. These activities have eroded the bank’s ability to conduct monetary policy. The RBZ’s solution – printing more money, and freezing prices and wages – has been like pouring water on...

By Rejoice Ngwenya in Zimbabwe Humans of the civilized world cannot fathom how on earth an average citizen survives in Zimbabwe. What with an inflation rate of more than ten million percent, a completely worthless currency and empty supermarket shelves, Darwinian adventure, Cesarean courage and Bonapartean arrogance can be the only vital ingredients in my daily survival kit. My day starts with a fire in the gazebo to warm a bucket of bathing water. Electricity is usually down and with a water system that collapsed six months ago, running water is a thing of the past. Zimbabwe National Water Authority has a repertoire of excuses why the precious liquid deserted my home. I have stopped asking. Water bills do come, but there are no penalties for ignoring them. In fact, deliberately ignoring water bills has become to me, an act of satisfying sweet revenge! Electricity does appear once in a while, but the risk of relying on stove-heated water is much too high, if I have to guarantee g...