A TEAM from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is in the country for a technical mission to assess Zimbabwe’s economic developments after clearing its arrears with the financial institution last year.
Source: IMF team in Zim to assess economic development – NewsDay Zimbabwe March 9, 2017
BY TARISAI MANDIZHA
In October, Zimbabwe used its special drawing rights holdings with IMF to pay its $107,9 million overdue obligations to the Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT).
A government official yesterday told NewsDay the team would also encourage Zimbabwe to settle its arrears with other multilateral and bilateral financial institutions.
“The technical mission is a general meeting. Zimbabwe is a member of IMF and IMF does pay a visit to all its member countries. On 28 October Zimbabwe paid its overdue obligation under the PRGT, which led to the removal of remedial measures. The IMF is also encouraging the country to pay the other remaining institutions which are being owed, such as the World Bank and the African Development Bank (AfDB),” a source said.
“The IMF technical mission is here to see where we are on development of the country. To see how far we have gone on the payment of our arrears in terms of other partners and also on the progress we have made, the country is expecting a bumper harvest and we need to adequately prepare ourselves for it.”
Zimbabwe had pledged to pay the three preferred creditors — IMF, World Bank and AfDB — the combined $1,8 billion at the same time.
The plan was later abandoned due to financial constraints.
The clearance plan is also anchored on accelerated public enterprises reform and improving public finance management, modernisation of the labour laws and aligning of laws to the Constitution and adhering to the rule of law and the pursuit of an anti-corruption thrust, among others.
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