Originally posted by the Voice of America.
Voice of America content is produced by the Voice of America,
a United States federal government-sponsored entity, and is in
the public domain.


               External Debt Choking Zimbabwe's Economic Recovery

   by Sebastian Mhofu

   Three years after the formation of Zimbabwe's coalition government, the
   country's economy is still trying to recover.
   Cars have now returned to the streets of Harare and almost all shops
   are fully stocked.  This was not the case prior to the formation of
   Zimbabwe's coalition government in 2009.  Streets were empty, so were
   shops.  Everything was in short supply.  It is more than three years
   down the line.  Things have changed for the better.
   But the country imports most of its products including bottled drinking
   water as industries are still struggling.  Willard Manungo, the
   Ministry of Finance's permanent secretary, says Zimbabwe's huge
   external debt is the major hurdle.
   "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 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 the African country.  The African
   Development Bank is owed more than $500 million.
   Earlier this week the Zimbabwe finance minister said he was in talks
   with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to retire
   Zimbabwe's debt.  Manungo says 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 after President Robert
   Mugabe's government was accused of disregarding human rights and
   suppressing the opposition then led by Prime Minister Morgan
   Tsvangirai.  The two are now in a power-sharing government but are tied
   up in quarrels about the drafting of a new constitution, which
   Tsvangirai's party says is needed to have a free and fair national
   election.
     __________________________________________________________________

   [1]http://www.voanews.com/content/zimbabwe-external-debt-chocking-econo
   mic-recovery/1502197.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/zimbabwe-external-debt-chocking-economic-recovery/1502197.html