IMF begins Zimbabwe audit
A team of International Monetary Fund experts is in Zimbabwe to begin a mission to heal the country's chaotic public finances.
Zimbabwe audit" class="imageframe alignright" height="200" src="http://pictures.directnews.co.uk/liveimages/Mugabe_1455_19173349_0_0_7014212_300.jpg" width="200"/>A team of International Monetary Fund experts is in Zimbabwe to begin a mission to heal the country's chaotic public finances.
The team, led by Erik Oppers and comprising Mike Andrews, Warren Coats, Kristian Kjeldsen and Kenneth Sullivan, rounds up its mission on May 29th.
The mission comes weeks after the IMF board announced the lifting of a ban on technical support to Zimbabwe in targeted areas such as tax policy and administration, payments systems, lender-of-last-resort operations and banking supervision as well as central banking governance and accounting.
The IMF's visit is seen as a sign of thawing relations between global money lending institutions and Zimbabwe, where a coalition government between president Robert Mugabe and prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai has been in place for near three months.
The IMF cut off financial support to Zimbabwe about a decade a ago over differences with long-time ruler Mugabe over fiscal policy issues and other governance issues.
On Monday the mission is due to meet finance minister Tendai Biti and central bank governor Gideon Gono.
In previous statements the IMF demanded reform of the central bank and the removal of Mr Gono, who is blamed for hastening Zimbabwe's economic collapse through rampant money printing and other quasi-fiscal activities.