Zimbabwe's budget reality check

Zimbabwe's new finance minister, Tendai Biti, has slashed the revenue target for this year from US$1.7 billion to US$1 billion in a revised budget that tries to deal with the reality of the country's economic disaster.



"This is a loss of budgeted expenditure of 43 percent," Biti told parliament, updating the revenue forecasts made at the beginning of the year by President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF cabinet. "The task of turning around the country becomes the toughest job of the inclusive government."



Biti took office in February, when the Movement for Democratic Change joined Mugabe's ZANU-PF in a power-sharing arrangement aimed at stabilizing record hyperinflation, food shortages and an unemployment rate estimated at 94 percent.



"Demands on the treasury are high and limitless; it is important for Zimbabweans to take a reality check. The reality of our economic situation is that it is grim," Biti was quoted as saying. But he did manage to find $32 million to earmark for "vulnerable groups" such as child-headed households.



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