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Minister Chinamasa

Business Reporter

The Ministry of Finance and Economic Development has completed a draft country financing programme that will see Government availing funds to critical sectors of the economy. The draft comes at a time when the country has successfully met the targets set under the International Monetary Fund Staff Monitored Programme. The 15 month SMP which was approved in 2014 provided a road map for building a strong track record towards normalizing the relationship between Zimbabwe and its creditors.Speaking at the IMF Round Table Discussion yesterday, Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa said a draft country’s financing programme has been made and will give priority to productive sectors of the economy.

“Going forward and after successfully meeting the targets set in the SMP, there is going to be an IMF board meeting in May this year to approve or reject our Lima debt clearance strategy.

“Judging from the discussions we had with the IMF, we now have a draft country financing programme. It is still a draft and is yet to be presented in Cabinet,” said Minister Chinamasa.

He said the success of the SMP guarantees that Zimbabwe now has a good track record despite the fact that there is still a lot to be done to achieve the desired goals.

“We now have a good track record but we are not yet there. We are only at a position where we are able to discuss a new financing programme only. We need to make friends and not enemies especially when you know that those enemies can lend you money,” said Minister Chinamasa.

He said Government also targets to improve efficiencies on the domestic front and improvement of power generation capacity has been highlighted as a top priority project to get funding.

“Domestically we are trying to improve efficiencies in the way we do our operations. We are looking at power generation, irrigation infrastructure, enhanced agricultural support, industrialisation and social upliftment of the people.

“Agriculture is the mainstay of this economy employing about 80 percent of our people and to address agriculture related issues we should use a bottom up approach,” said Minister Chinamasa.

Minister Chinamasa also highlighted that under the country financing programme, Government is looking at providing security of tenure to farmers who benefited from the 14,5 million hectares availed under the land reform programme.