Former Finance Minister Tendai Biti has strongly challenged the World Bank’s decision to reclassify Zimbabwe.
The World Bank recently removed Zimbabwe from its fragile and conflict-affected economies list.
The change took effect on 1 July after improvements in the country’s Country Policy and Institutional Assessment score.
Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube welcomed the decision as a significant achievement for Zimbabwe.
He also described it as renewed confidence in the government’s reform agenda.
However, Biti argued that the new classification ignores Zimbabwe’s deeper political, economic and social problems.
Writing on X, he questioned the basis used to reach the World Bank’s decision.
Biti said the decision was “made adhocratically, anecdotally and without empirical data” and was political.
He further claimed that the government wanted the reclassification to advance Vision 2030.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration aims to achieve upper-middle-income status by that target year.
Biti Questions Zimbabwe’s Economic Picture
Biti alleged that authorities were manipulating economic statistics to support their development narrative.
“In the process, phantom data is being cooked, particularly around GDP, GNI, to justify a higher per capita GNI. But the hard reality is that this is a poor, fragile state with 68% of the population living below the poverty line,” Biti wrote.
He argued that political and economic conditions remain the main measures of state fragility.
According to Biti, Zimbabwe continues facing serious weaknesses across both areas.
He cited divisions within the ruling party as one major political concern.
Biti described these divisions as “cockpit fissures” within the governing establishment.
Furthermore, he highlighted the Agenda 2030 debate and increasing political polarisation.
He also pointed to disputed elections, political toxicity and shrinking democratic space.
On the economic front, Biti focused on Zimbabwe’s growing diaspora population.
He claimed that more than six million Zimbabweans now live outside the country.
He also said 74% of Zimbabwe’s most qualified professionals have left the country.
Consequently, Biti argued that poverty and unemployment continue weakening the country’s social foundations.
He added that informality and exclusion have further deepened Zimbabwe’s vulnerability.
Social Crisis and Government Criticism
Biti also raised concerns about Zimbabwe’s social development indicators.
He said maternal and infant mortality rates remain deeply troubling.
According to him, those figures are “medieval” and amount to “nothing short of soft genocide”.
“One does not need Mai Ezra from Chiendambuya as an exhibit for 46 years of policy-induced underdevelopment, dependence, alienation and poverty,” he said.
Biti then accused the government of prioritising appearances over genuine progress.
He argued that official messaging increasingly replaces an honest assessment of national challenges.
He said “form over substance” had become a defining feature of governance.
According to Biti, “lies over reality, spin and fake news become the reality”.
He ended with a scathing assessment of Zimbabwe’s political leadership.
Biti described Zimbabwe as “a broken, corrupt, failed kakistocracy run by the worst group of kleptocrats since Mobutu”.
He also labelled those in power “high priests of plunder”.
His criticism directly challenges the government’s celebration of the World Bank’s decision.
Meanwhile, the disagreement highlights sharply different views about Zimbabwe’s current direction.
The post Biti blasts World Bank decision to remove Zimbabwe from fragile states list appeared first on iHarare News.
