(TALKZIMBABWE) External debt frustrating Zimbabwe’s growth

COMMENT - This is more lying from the MDC. They want to use the debt their ZDERA created, to justify privatisation of the mines. They want to push through HIPC, and they are using the debt built up through the ZDERA credit freeze to do it.

External debt frustrating Zimbabwe’s growth
This article was written by Our reporter on 6 September, at 05 : 44 AM

EXTERNAL debt is choking Zimbabwe’s economic recovery, a finance ministry official has said. Willard Manungo, the Ministry of Finance’s permanent secretary, says Zimbabwe’s huge external debt is a major hurdle to the economic recovery of the country.

He said the country cannot access international credit lines because it is severely indebted. The African Development Bank cannot open up credit lines for Zimbabwe because of its debt position.

“African Development Bank is a major, major player but when it comes to Zimbabwe, because we are in arrears, we become automatically ineligible to borrow from African Development Bank,” he said.

The AfDB is also one of the 9 banks mentioned explicitly in ZDERA. Since Jan. 1st 2002, when ZDERA went into effect, the Zimbabwean government has not been allowed to reschedule it's debt at the institution.

SEC. 4. SUPPORT FOR DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION AND ECONOMIC RECOVERY.

(c) MULTILATERAL FINANCING RESTRICTION- ... the Secretary of the Treasury shall instruct the United States executive director to each international financial institution to oppose and vote against--

(1) any extension by the respective institution of any loan, credit, or guarantee to the Government of Zimbabwe; or

(2) any cancellation or reduction of indebtedness owed by the Government of Zimbabwe to the United States or any international financial institution.

Section 3 mentions the banks that are affected, and specifically mentions the African Development Bank:


SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.

In this Act:

(1) INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS- The term `international financial institutions' means the

multilateral development banks and the
International Monetary Fund.

(2) MULTILATERAL DEVELOPMENT BANKS- The term `multilateral development banks' means the

International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the
International Development Association, the
International Finance Corporation, the
Inter-American Development Bank, the
Asian Development Bank, the
Inter-American Investment Corporation, the
African Development Bank, the
African Development Fund, the
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the
Multilateral Investment Guaranty Agency.

The MDC is now using the debt built up with this legislation they helped create a decade ago, to push through the privatisation of the Zimbabwean people's mines. - MrK

“The same situation with World Bank and other major cooperating partners. So the issue of arrears is limiting the capacity of some of the cooperating partners to cooperating with us.”

Zimbabwe’s external debt is now more than $10 billion and for more than a decade now the country has been in default resulting in major international lenders shunning it.

The African Development Bank is owed more than $500 million.

Earlier this week finance minister Tendai Biti (pictured) said he was in talks with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to retire Zimbabwe’s debt.

Manungo said the suspension of development aid to Zimbabwe was affecting the country’s recovery.

“If you look at [the] number of development areas that we would want to go into in Zimbabwe – energy, infrastructure, water – I think those are all areas where if development assistance was as it was in the past, Zimbabwe would be seeing major support.

“So the scaling of global development financial flows is also having a major impact on Zimbabwe,” he said.

Most Western nations such as the U.S., Germany and Britain suspended development assistance to Zimbabwe in 2002.