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.
Labels: DEBT, HIPC, NEOLIBERALISM, PRIVATISATION, WILLARD MANUNGO
Read more...
Zim delegation to attend IMF?WB meetings
By: TC-TZG
Posted: Wednesday, September 29, 2010 11:18 am
A ZIMBABWEAN delegation led by Finance Minister Tendai Biti will next week attend the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group annual meeting in Washington DC in the United States of America. The IMF/World Bank Group annual meetings will be held from 8 to 10 October and the Zimbabwe delegation will leave the country on 5 October.
An official of the Ministry of Finance said Minister Biti and the Permanent Secretary, Mr Willard Manungo, will lead the Zimbabwean delegation that will participate at the IMF/World Bank annual meetings.
“The meeting will be attended by all the World Bank and the IMF members and it will be for reviewing policies that will have an effect on almost all the financial institutions in the world.
The annual meeting will bring together central bankers, ministers of finance and development, private sector executives and academics to discuss issues of global concern including the world economic outlook, poverty eradication, economic development, and aid effectiveness.
About 10 000 people will officially attend the IMF/World Bank meetings while some thousands more will unofficially attend the meetings and these include anti-globalisation and anti-capitalism demonstrators.
Last Friday, Minister Biti, while addressing business executives during the 2011 national budget consultative meeting in Bulawayo said it would be folly for one to think that Zimbabwe could survive without the help from international financial institutions.
[Is this a final admission by the MDC on the effect of the international financial institution's credit freeze of the government of Zimbabwe, which started on December 21st 2001?
Since ZDERA was signed into law, the MDC have maintained that a) there are no economic sanctions against Zimbabwe and b) that those economic sanctions have no real effect on the economy. They said in effect that a credit freeze by international financial institutions didn't have much of an effect on the Zimbabwean economy.
However, now their spin is one of dependency - now, "it would be folly to think that Zimbabwe could survive without the help of international financial institutions".
The MDC are scumbags. They have destroyed the country of Zimbabwe, for the sole purpose that they could attain power. This is who Britain supports and who the Bush Administration supports. Just a reminder of the credit freeze by International Finacial Institutions that has been in force against Zimbabwe since 2002:
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.
See here for all to see, the sabotage, the treachery, the subservience to international capital, of the MDC. - MrK]
He said the IMF and the World Bank were critical for the development of any country, adding it was important for the country to clear its international debts in a bid to improve relations with financial institutions.
Meanwhile, a World Bank delegation is next week expected to hold tax seminars with the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority and officials from the Ministry of Finance.
Labels: IMF, TENDAI BITI, WILLARD MANUNGO, World Bank
Read more...
‘Embrace professionalism’
Business Reporter
ACCOUNTING personnel in the public sector should embrace high professional standards to improve accountability and help in safeguarding the limited public resource, Secretary for Finance Mr Willard Manungo has said. Mr Manungo who was the guest of honour at the official opening of a five-day regional workshop hosted by Eastern and Southern African Association of Accountant General (ESAAG) which started in Harare on Monday, said the main thrust of the workshop was to improve financial management and accountability in the region.
This, he said, would serve public interest and contribute to the strengthening of the accountancy profession and the development of vibrant international economies through convergence of standards.
He said the adoption of international accounting ethics was aimed at, "strengthening international audit standard-setting processes, achieve convergence to international standards, and ensure that the international accountancy profession was responsive to public interest." The workshop is also set to create awareness on the latest developments in promoting best practice standards in the adoption of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC).
IFAC is an association of national professional accountancy organisations which represent accountants employed in public practice, business and industry, the public sector, and education, as well as some specialised groups that interface frequently with the profession.
The association seeks to develop the profession globally and to harmonise professional standards worldwide to enable accountants to provide services of high quality in the public interest across political borders.
Currently, IFAC has 158 bodies and associates in 188 countries, representing more than three million accountants. Mr Manungo said professionals should always comply with the legal and regulatory framework through developing and implementing adequate financial management and reporting systems.
Labels: ACCOUNTING, ESAAG, WILLARD MANUNGO, ZIMBABWE
Read more...
