via Govt sets up debt clearance committee – NewZimbabwe 20 May 2015
GOVERNMENT has set up a committee to come up with strategies and ways of settling the country’s ballooning external debt.
Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa made the announcement in Harare, Tuesday evening after a closed door meeting with senior representatives of the World Bank and the African Development Bank.
Chinamasa said the committee will work on possible options which Zimbabwe could take in order to clear its debt.
Zimbabwe is struggling with a near $10 billion external debt which is preventing the country from accessing fresh capital from multilateral institutions.
If Zimbabwe clears its external debt it will be able to borrow long term capital from these institutions.
“I am hoping that this committee should come up with options that we can adopt in time for the next meeting of the financial institutions which shall be held in Peru-Lima in October,” said Chinamasa.
“So, by that time we should have something we think we should take to those we think can support us in implementing those options or any of those options”.
“But do not keep asking us next month how far are you, we will not tell you and we will remain mum, even where we adopt any options these will remain privy to us and the organizations that we are working with,” said Chinamasa to journalists jokingly.
Until we are able to put this to those we would have identified to support us in implementing those options of course including the financial institutions because they are very much key”.
Chinamasa said the Reserve Bank Governor John Mangudya will be chairing the debt clearance strategy committee which comprises officials from the Finance Ministry and members of the African Development Bank, International Monitory Fund and the World Bank.
African Development Bank board member Mahomed Rafique Jusob Mahomed said for Zimbabwe to come up with an acceptable debt clearance strategy it should engage all stakeholders.
“You need to have fresh money in this country but for that you need to clear the arrears. We need to engage all parties involved ….and at the end of the day what we want is a prosperous Zimbabwe,” he said.
COMMENTS
We may create several committees on debt management and clearance, but all will fail, because our Debt be it external or internal is a creation of consumptive looting, not even the WW II Marshal Plan can bail us out given our propensity to loot public funds at the slightest moment through legalizing the practice (Gov. Debt Assumption). Corruption through looting is now an economic factor in the Zimbabwean industry, both public and private.
Will the new ‘debt clearance committee’ get new 4×4’s to go around the country to “assess” the debt? Will the new committee talk in nice hotels about the problem all while receiving amazing perks, huge salaries and laptops and flights to New York?? If so, that is exactly how the debt got there in the first place.