US urges Zimbabwe to double down on reforms

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Harare, ZIMBABWE — The Unit­ed States is urg­ing the Zim­bab­we gov­ern­ment to dou­ble down on reforms aimed at return­ing the coun­try to the pros­per­i­ty it once enjoyed.

Speak­ing to reporters in Harare on Mon­day, Pamela Tremont, the U.S. ambas­sador to Zim­bab­we, said her coun­try wants to have cor­dial rela­tions with the south­ern African nation.

She urged the gov­ern­ment to pur­sue polit­i­cal and finan­cial reforms that she said would deliv­er Zimbabwe’s peo­ple the pros­per­i­ty and dig­ni­ty they deserve.

“We’re here today as part of our com­mit­ment to the Zim­bab­we peo­ple that is long-stand­ing and con­sis­tent, and we’re here to advo­cate for the reforms that the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty has been ask­ing for for many years,” Tremont said. “We’re quite clear — we need pub­lic offi­cials to quit using their pub­lic offices for pri­vate gain. We need the judi­cia­ry to be able to deliv­er jus­tice inde­pen­dent­ly of polit­i­cal considerations.”

The Unit­ed States also wants “the rights to assem­bly and free speech to be ful­ly respect­ed,” in Zim­bab­we, she said.

Tremont spoke as talks on restruc­tur­ing Zimbabwe’s $21 bil­lion debt began.

Akin­wu­mi Adesina, pres­i­dent of the African Devel­op­ment Bank Group, called for nego­ti­a­tions on the debt to speed up.

“Even wars nev­er last this long,” Adesina said. “It is clear­ly time to bring this to a close — end the decades of untold dam­age to the econ­o­my of Zim­bab­we, the suf­fer­ing of its peo­ple, and have a new begin­ning with col­lec­tive hope, aspi­ra­tion and shared pros­per­i­ty for its peo­ple, today and well into the future. It is time to make Zim­bab­we beau­ti­ful again. No one, no mat­ter how strong, can run up a hill car­ry­ing on their back piles of sand. The $21 bil­lion debt of Zim­bab­we, of which the bulk is actu­al­ly arrears, has made arrears the new debt stacked like piles of sand­bags on the back of Zimbabwe.

“We all agree we must play our part to cor­rect this anom­aly and give a new lease of life to this nation and its peo­ple so Zim­bab­we can run again.”

Adesina was ask­ing insti­tu­tions such as the World Bank and the Inter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund to finance new loans for Zim­bab­we and for­give or reduce old debts.

At the same meet­ing, Pres­i­dent Emmer­son Mnan­gag­wa appealed for debt to be restruc­tured so Zim­bab­we can access cred­it lines.

“The suc­cess­ful imple­men­ta­tion of our arrears clear­ance and debt res­o­lu­tion strat­e­gy is key for Zim­bab­we to unlock new con­ces­sion­al exter­nal financ­ing crit­i­cal for achiev­ing our eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment objec­tives,” the pres­i­dent said. “I call for the con­tin­ued sup­port of the inter­na­tion­al finan­cial insti­tu­tions, devel­op­ment part­ners, our cred­i­tors and the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty for the arrears clear­ance and debt res­o­lu­tion process. Access to exter­nal financ­ing will be key for long-term fund­ing [of] our projects and pro­grams. I am look­ing for­ward to achiev­ing the set objec­tive of this struc­tured dialogue.”

Zimbabwe’s nation­al debt has climbed steadi­ly since the ear­ly 2000s, when land con­fis­ca­tions by the gov­ern­ment led to sharply reduced food pro­duc­tion and sent the econ­o­my into a tailspin.

Some gov­ern­ment offi­cials main­tain that Zim­bab­we can­not access cred­it lines because of the tar­get­ed sanc­tions imposed on some lead­ers for alleged elec­tion rig­ging and human rights abus­es in the ear­ly 2000s.