United Kingdom Ambassador Catriona Laing revealed a discussion with the Minister of Finance Mthuli Ncube on the future challenges for Zimbabwe during a press brief with the journalists in Harare yesterday.
Laing visits the Finance Minister’s office as Zimbabwe continues to suffer from cash and foreign currency shortages.
“We had an opportunity for a very, very useful and frank discussion around the huge challenges ahead for Zimbabwe,” Laing said. “There is no surprise to anyone, ordinary Zimbabweans are suffering deeply particularly with the awful cholera epidemic that is now on top of everything else.”
“We are very conscious of how tough it is for Zimbabweans, therefore, what’s important is how hope is invested in and a pathway forward and a plan for Zimbabwe to get out of the deep economic crisis and in dire quite rightly inspire to be a middle-income country by 2030.”
The outgoing ambassador said the UK is there to provide support on the clearance of arrears.
“The meetings with the IMF and the World Bank will be a really good opportunity for you to set out the vision on the fiscal and the monetary side and I know the UK and all the other creditors including the US will be very interested to hear what you say and to see what the timeline is going to be because I think the sooner we can get on track on some of these challenging reforms the better,” Laing said.
“We recognise that you need support and we are here to provide that support and to try and to encourage a process to get back into an IMF program perhaps into a monitoring program as soon as possible and to enable you to start a serious dialog around the clearance of the arrears to the IMF the World Bank and the Africa Development Bank which will eventually then unlock what you really need which is lines of credit from the private sector for direct investment and so on,”
Zimbabwe is faced with a high debt overhang in the region of $18 billion – combined domestic and external debt according to Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development (ZIMCODD)
During the press briefing, the Zimbabwean Finance Minister said he told Laing that the government is working on a Transitional Stabilisation Program that will be used to operationalise Vision 2030.
The UK has extended resources in due of £9 billion into Zimbabwe since 2009 according to Ncube.
