Dr Adesina calls for Zim sanctions removal

The African Development Bank (AfDB) says the economic sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by the West at the turn of the millennium, have caused serious suffering and it was time conversations around ending the embargo receive more priority.

“It’s time to put the pain of sanctions behind us by discussing real issues to heal the wounds in Zimbabwe,” AfDB president Dr Akinwumi Adesina told journalists during the bank’s annual meetings held in Egypt last week. AfDB is spearheading the country’s debt restructuring strategy alongside former Mozambican president Joaquim Chissano.

Apart from its statutory meetings, the bank convened a presidential dialogue and three thematic knowledge sessions. The highlights included the launch of the bank group’s flagship 2023 African Economic Outlook Report, a unique celebration of the Africa Day, commemorating the 60th anniversary of the African Union and a roundtable discussion on Zimbabwe’s debt arrears clearance.

However, some analysts have expressed concern over the pending Patriotic Bill, whose vote in Parliament was deferred to today. Critics have described the bill as oppressive, which could undermine the discussions around Zimbabwe’s debt clearance strategy.

The Bill will amend the Criminal Law Code in four respects: It will create the crime of “wilfully damaging the sovereignty and national interest of Zimbabwe.

This is the “Patriot” part of the Bill.

It will provide mandatory minimum prison sentences for rape, alter the definition of dangerous drugs whose possession, sale and use are prohibited by Chapter VII of the Code and will narrow the scope of the crime of abuse of public office.

“One of the prerequisite of the debt strategy as eloquently express by Dr Adesina is that the country has to open democratic space and respect human rights and the Bill seen to be in alignment to that,” a Harare based economic analyst said.

In its African Economic Outlook 2023, the AfDB said the “rapid fall” of the Zimbabwe dollar is partly due to sanctions imposed on the country by Western countries.

The economy has been reeling under sanctions since the turn of the new millennium and the embargo has prevented the country from accessing concessional lines of credit from global financial institutions to support its balance of payment position.

Despite the country recording significant inflows of foreign currency from exports and diaspora remittances, these have not been adequate to defend the currency.

Foreign Direct Investment flows, another major source of liquidity, have also been low, declining to only 1 percent of the Gross Domestic Product currently from 25 percent in 1996.

Since the re-introduction of the Zimbabwe dollar, after a decade of a multi-currency regime generally referred to as dollarisation, the local unit has largely been unstable and has significantly lost its value to $1 888 against the US dollar from $57,4/$US1 in June 2020 when the Government ended a fixed exchange rate of $25.

The Zimbabwean dollar alongside Ghana’s cedi and Sierra Leone’s leone were among Africa’s most devalued currencies against the United States dollar in 2022.

-ebusinessweekly