{"id":66735,"date":"2022-09-26T15:38:53","date_gmt":"2022-09-26T13:38:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/former-finance-minister-biti-says-zimbabwes-external-debt-figure-is-heavily-contested"},"modified":"2022-09-26T18:12:23","modified_gmt":"2022-09-26T16:12:23","slug":"former-finance-minister-biti-says-zimbabwes-external-debt-figure-is-heavily-contested","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.cc\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/former-finance-minister-biti-says-zimbabwes-external-debt-figure-is-heavily-contested","title":{"rendered":"Former Finance Minister Biti Says Zimbabwe\u2019s External Debt Figure \u201cIs Heavily Contested\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Zimbabwe. <\/strong><\/span>Zimbabwe\u2019s former Finance Minister during the Government of National Unity (GNU), Tendai Biti has said the southern African country\u2019s external debt figure is heavily contested.<\/p>\n<p>In his midterm review statement presented in July 2022, Finance and Economic Development minister Mthuli Ncube said Zimbabwe owed about US$12 billion to external creditors.<\/p>\n<p>Biti questioned the debt figure while speaking in a discussion themed \u201cPolicy dialogue 13 of 2022: Debt and Corruption in Zimbabwe: What is the Real Cost?\u201d hosted last week by Sapes Trust and moderated by former Finance minister Simba Makoni.<\/p>\n<p>He also said 90% of new loans acquired by the government were bypassing Parliament, contrary to section 327 of the Constitution.<\/p>\n<p>Biti claimed that citizens, including Parliament, have a right to demand full disclosure describing the recent disclosure of US$2,7 billion owed to the Chinese as shocking. NewsDay Zimbabwe quotes him as saying:<\/p>\n<p>We all know that Zimbabwe has been in the throes of an unsustainable debt crisis since the late 90s. A combination of fiscal deficits, stunted growth, and high debt service obligations resulted in our country defaulting on debts in the 2000s. Right now, we have huge arrears and an unsustainable stock of debt with the Paris Club of lenders, World Bank, and African Development Bank. That figure on its own is heavily contested.<\/p>\n<p>Auditor-General Mildred Chiri also recently questioned the country\u2019s domestic debt accuracy.<\/p>\n<p>She said the lack of source documents for interest arrears, other charges, and penalties might result in uncertainty over the country\u2019s debt obligation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\">Zimbabwe<\/a> Follow <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe\u2019s former Finance Minister during the Government of National Unity (GNU), Tendai Biti has said the southern African country\u2019s external debt figure is heavily contested. In his midterm review statement presented in July 2022, Finance and Economic Development minister Mthuli Ncube said Zimbabwe owed about US$12 billion to external creditors. Biti questioned [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":66734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6,35,15],"tags":[1493,2189,11010,807,11993,1675,11992,1164,19],"class_list":{"0":"post-66735","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-all-news","8":"category-economy","9":"category-homepage-english","10":"category-twitter","11":"tag-africa-press","12":"tag-africa-press-zimbabwe-2","13":"tag-government-of-national-unity-gnu-2009-2013","14":"tag-mthuli-ncube","15":"tag-reserve-bank-of-zimbabwe-debt-assumption-act","16":"tag-sapes-trust","17":"tag-simba-makoni","18":"tag-tendai-biti","19":"tag-zimbabwe"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.1 (Yoast SEO v24.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Former Finance Minister Biti Says Zimbabwe\u2019s External Debt Figure \u201cIs Heavily Contested\u201d - zimbabwe<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Zimbabwe\u2019s former Finance Minister during the Government of National Unity (GNU), Tendai Biti has said the southern Afri ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/former-finance-minister-biti-says-zimbabwes-external-debt-figure-is-heavily-contested\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Former Finance Minister Biti Says Zimbabwe\u2019s External Debt Figure \u201cIs Heavily Contested\u201d\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Zimbabwe\u2019s former Finance Minister during the Government of National Unity (GNU), Tendai Biti has said the southern Afri ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/former-finance-minister-biti-says-zimbabwes-external-debt-figure-is-heavily-contested\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"zimbabwe\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-09-26T13:38:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-09-26T16:12:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/sites\/14\/2022\/09\/postQueueImg_10-6331cf33bd1a9.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"533\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/former-finance-minister-biti-says-zimbabwes-external-debt-figure-is-heavily-contested\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/former-finance-minister-biti-says-zimbabwes-external-debt-figure-is-heavily-contested\",\"name\":\"Former Finance Minister Biti Says Zimbabwe\u2019s External Debt Figure \u201cIs Heavily Contested\u201d - 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