Harare (New Ziana) – President Emmerson Mnangagwa held talks with senior International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank officials on Thursday, centred on the country’s engagement and re-engagement drive in which it seeks to build co-operative relationships with all nations.
Speaking after the talks, the officials said both the IMF and World Bank were willing to work with Zimbabwe in its economic turnaround efforts underway.
Both suspended aid to Zimbabwe over two decades ago as part of Western sanctions on the country over its land reforms in which government compulsorily took excess farmland from white farmers to resettle landless blacks.
IMF director responsible for African department, Abebe Aemro Selaisse, said he and his World Bank counterpart, Nathan Belete wanted to find out from President Mnangagwa what assistance the country could require from the two global .
Belete is the World Bank’s country director for Zimbabwe.
“On our part, we expressed our readiness to support Zimbabwe. The Government has requested some staff monitored programme through which we can provide support to the government in terms of policy advice, technical assistance and we want to initiate that as soon as the government is ready,” Selaisse said.
Finance and Investment Promotion Minister, Prof Mthuli Ncube, who also attended the talks, said the staff monitored programme was a commitment by government to agreed reforms, as it seeks to further stabilise and grow the country’s economy.
“Of course, it comes with some resources, some of the resources are already here through development partners, some of the resources are our own resources and government is spending a little bit of money, for example social protection, protecting the vulnerable through the productive social protection Pfumvudza/Intwasa programme as well as Basic Education Assistance Module(BEAM) programme for supporting the vulnerable children in the schools,” he said.
New Ziana
