While the annual meetings of the African Development Bank in Maputo, Mozambique certainly lack a sense of spontaneity, an interesting ruckus has developed as a result of a press release issued on Monday. In the release, the AfDB announced that the government of Zimbabwe had begun paying its arrears, with payments totaling $650,000 in the last month.

Despite Zimbabwe’s arrears status, it has continued to hold the chair of one of the AfDB’s multi-country constituencies. Its Executive Director represents several countries, including the annual meeting’s host country, Mozambique.

Since the onset of its financial crisis, marked by inflation exceeding 100,000%, Zimbabwe has fallen into arrears with several IFIs, including the AfDB. It made several payments to the IMF in 2005, totaling $210 million in an attempt to get itself reinstated, and was accused of skimming private foreign-exchange accounts to do so. The South African government offered to loan Zimbabwe money to make the payments, but it is still not clear if the offer was taken up. At any rate, the IMF accepted the money but determined that it the payment only sufficed to prevent Zimbabwe’s expulsion, but not to restore its voting rights at the Fund. The country’s central bank governor, Gideon Gono, was outraged and said he regretted the payments, which critics pointed out could have been used to assist people driven to desperation by the financial crisis.

Similar charges will undoubtedly be made in the case of the AfDB payment. But the question is: did the payment happen?

The AfDB press release seems definitive. It even speaks in rosy terms about the Zimbabwean government’s valiant effort to simultaneously honor its obligations and provide for increased food supplies for its people in this difficult time. The Herald, the official newspaper of President Robert Mugabe’s government, confirmed the payment. SAPA reported that it could not get any Zimbabwean officials to explain how it had managed to find the money.

But today (Wednesday), Gideon Gono denied any payment had been made. Zim Online quotes Gono: "If the country had such resources (US$700 million), the Reserve Bank would have prioritised the importation of grain (maize and wheat); the importation of fuel, electricity, medical drugs, industrial chemicals, fertilizers, seeds, water treatment chemicals, agricultural equipment, and other infrastructural development essentials, and of course leaving some for debt service."

Zimbabwe’s surreal public sphere has now drawn the African Development Bank into its turmoil. It will be interesting to see if the AfDB responds to Gono’s claims.