Finance minister Ncube seeks debt relaxation from international financial institutions

FINANCE minister and Investment Promotion Mthuli Ncube wants international financial institutions to relax their lending conditions.

His comes at the time African countries are grappling to repay their debts.

Zimbabwe’s total public and publicly guaranteed debt stood at $18 billion in December 2022, made up of $12.8 billion in foreign debt and $5.2 billion in domestic debt, as per a debt bulletin published by the treasury.

Of the external debt, $5.89 billion is bilateral debt, whilst $2.7 billion is owed to lenders, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the African Development Bank (AfDB).

The majority of this multilateral debt, $2.47 billion, is arrears and penalties for failure to pay.

The finance minister is on record saying the country was committed to servicing its debt in spite of Zimbabwe’s poor economic performance over close to 30 years.

Zwnews