Southern Africa plans summit on 2 billion dollar Zimbabwe aid

Johannesburg - Southern African leaders will hold yet another summit on Zimbabwe, this time to discuss the new government's request for 2 billion dollars in aid, South Africa's foreign affairs minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said Friday. Reporting back on a meeting of Southern African Development Community (SADC) ministers in Cape Town, Dlamini-Zuma said the finance ministers from the 15-nation bloc had drawn up a 'regionally-supported' economic recovery programme for cash-strapped Zimbabwe. The ministers would be engaging bilateral and multilateral donors on Zimbabwe's behalf, pushing for the lifting of targeted European Union and US sanctions and 'facilitating the normalization of the status of Zimbabwe at the International Monetary Fund,' she said. They would also be convening another extraordinary summit of SADC heads of state and government 'to consider the financing proposals submitted by Zimbabwe.' Zimbabwe's new finance minister, Tendai Biti, this week told his SADC counterparts the new coalition government needed 2 billion dollars over the next 10 months - 1 billion dollars in the form of a loan to stimulate business activity, and another 1 billion dollars to end emergencies in health, education, sanitation, energy, water provision and other services. Ten years of ruinous policies under President Robert Mugabe have wrecked Zimbabwe's economy. The breakdown of basic infrastructure has sparked a cholera epidemic that has claimed close to 4,000 lives and continues to spread. While the African Development Bank has been listed as a likely source of funding for Zimbabwe, ADB president Donald Kaberuka, who has been attending the Cape Town meetings, said Zimbabwe would have to clear its debts first. The country has run up 5 billion dollars in debt, including 460 million dollars it owes to the ADB. Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai says he needs up to 5 billion dollars to rebuild the country in the medium to long term. Western donors have been reluctant to pledge funds before getting assurances that the two-week-old government that is headed by Mugabe is genuinely committed to reform. The Movement for Democratic Change is incensed at the state's refusal to release over 30 MDC members and human rights activists being held mostly on what it calls 'trumped-up' charges of plotting against Mugabe. The party is also refusing to recognize Mugabe's unilateral appointment this week of several permanent secretaries.