'Sanctions alone not the cause of Zimbabwe economic woes'

Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development executive director Janet Zhou has said while Western sanctions imposed on the country were negatively affecting the economy, it was trite to note that gross mismanagement of public funds by the Zanu-PF government was largely to blame for the current economic mess.

Zhou said this at a Zimbabwe Council of Churches dialogue on the economy in Harare on Thursday. "I would also like to go beyond the mantra of sanctions being used for regime change and being the major cause of our economic problems," she said, adding that mismanagement of funds and corruption, among other things, were responsible for the current economic mess.

"I believe that we have not done enough in terms of our own domestic resource mobilisation because Zimbabwe is endowed with many natural resources, but we have not done much because of mismanagement of funds," she said.

Nelson Mupunga, the deputy director of the international economic research department at the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, said failure to repay loans sourced from international monetary institutions also contributed to the economic collapse.

"Following the land reform, we have not been in a position to clear arrears to international monetary institutions. Because of the debt, we are also not in any position to access funds. Adding to that, Zimbabwe has also been falling neck-deep in the economic downfall due to low foreign investment as compared to other
African nations, and as a result, our economy has crumbled," he said.