LAST year, President Mnangagwa appointed former Mozambique President Joaquim Chissano (JC) as the high-level facilitator of the country’s arrears clearance and debt resolution process.
President Chissano was in the country last week, attending the Second Structured Dialogue Platform meeting on the arrears clearance and debt resolution process.
The Sunday Mail’s Debra Matabvu (DM) engaged former president Chissano and discussed Zimbabwe’s journey towards resolving its arrears and debt challenges.
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DM: Thank you, your Excellency, for affording me time from your busy schedule. May you kindly start by outlining the purpose of this visit to Zimbabwe.
JC: The purpose of this visit to Harare is to respond to the invitation from President Mnangagwa, who appointed me a facilitator for this dialogue on the clearance of arrears and resolution of Zimbabwe’s debt.
The invitation and appointment of the facilitator was also supported by the president of the African Development Bank, Dr Akinwumi Adesina.
The problem Zimbabwe is facing needs a solution as this is important for our region.
Considering that Mozambique is a close neighbour of Zimbabwe and partner, I accepted the appointment.
Solutions to such problems bring benefits to the region, to Africa and to the world.
Zimbabwe is very important to the region, given its geographical location, wealth and human resources.
So, I accepted because it is a country in SADC (Southern African Development Community) and this matters a lot.
DM: From your assessment, what chances does Zimbabwe have in resolving its debt and arrears problems?
JC: Zimbabwe is seeking clearance of its debt and arrears.
I think the arrears can be cleared since there is goodwill.
There are a lot of conditions that have been put in place that Zimbabwe has to meet before the arrears are cleared.
As for the resolution of the debt, I think it will be something of a medium to long-term programme, but, again, that depends on the outcome of the dialogue.
Zimbabwe has now demonstrated that it wants to re-engage with the world and enhance its pace of development.
So, the world must be interested in helping this happen because of a number of factors that include the importance of Zimbabwe to the world, which I have already stated.
I also believe that once the re-engagement is done, there will be efforts from various partners to raise the financial resources.
That is the purpose of the ongoing discussions, to ensure that Zimbabwe begins to clear its arrears.
There is a discussion going on and we will find the best solution.
So, to answer your question, it is possible.
DM: At the recent African Union summit, United Nations secretary-general António Guterres said there was a need for international creditors to review business models for the benefit of developing countries. What is your take on that?
JC: Currently, businesses are struggling across the world because of a number of issues such as global recession, pandemics and wars.
So, obviously, some countries will be hit harder than others.
Therefore, everyone should be reviewing their way of doing business.
For example, African countries, even though they are endowed with natural resources, like here in Zimbabwe, you have mineral resources and agriculture, these will not mean anything if the way of doing business is not reviewed.
International financial institutions should allow poor and African countries to have a say in their businesses and have fair advantage.
DM: What outcomes are you expecting from this meeting?
JC: We are expecting that, during the next meeting, partners from all sides will be clear on what they can offer in terms of how far they can go.
They will have about three months to study the problem and bring forward clear proposals.
From there onwards, more steps will be taken and the process will be speeded up.
At times, there will be little understanding of the problems faced by each side.
However, the dialogue is taking place and we are hoping for better results in the next meetings.
There will be meetings of working groups in March and April.
A high-level meeting will take place in May.
From these meetings, we will see how far we are from the target.
DM: Going forward, what can we expect from this initiative in the immediate future?
JC: In May, that is when we are going to map the way forward and see how far we have gone.
We will then have a full understanding of the problems from all the stakeholders.
This will make a lot of difference.
We cannot map anything at the moment because the meetings are still ongoing.
There are meetings that will take place in March and we’ll have another one in April, which will improve on this one we are having before we reach May, when the vision will be clearer.
DM: Most international financiers have been unwilling to offer fresh affordable lending to Zimbabwe over a long period now. Do you think there could be politics at play in that regard?
JC: Zimbabwe’s debt is one of the sins because it is quite big.
So, we may say that Zimbabwe is under sanctions, but solutions can be found from economic reforms, compensation of farmers and if Government’s performance is positive, then the financiers could be flexible.
For example, the IMF (International Monetary Fund) does not discuss politics; however, what happens on the political side is important for them to have assurance that they can financially assist the country. Hence, the Government is being asked to deal with issues such as human rights, electoral process, and violence etc.
So, this has to be taken care of and the Government is taking care of that. From what we heard, steps are being taken and it seems the partners are happy to see this happening.
DM: Thank you very much. – Sunday Mail
