United States Urges Zimbabwe To Implement Reforms For Prosperity

The United States has called on the Zimbabwean government to implement comprehensive political and financial reforms to restore the country’s former prosperity, reported VOA.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the High-level Structured Dialogue Platform Meeting on Arrears Clearance and Debt Resolution in Harare on Monday, Pamela Tremont, the United States Ambassador to Zimbabwe, said that the U.S. seeks to foster cordial relations with the southern African nation. Said Tremont:

We’re here today as part of our commitment to the Zimbabwe people that is long-standing and consistent, and we’re here to advocate for the reforms that the international community has been asking for for many years.

We’re quite clear — we need public officials to quit using their public offices for private gain. We need the judiciary to be able to deliver justice independently of political considerations.

She said the United States also wants “the rights to assembly and free speech to be fully respected,” in Zimbabwe.

Akinwumi Adesina, the president of the African Development Bank (AfDB), called for negotiations on the debt to be expedited. He said:

Even wars never last this long. It is clearly time to bring this to a close — end the decades of untold damage to the economy of Zimbabwe, the suffering of its people, and have a new beginning with collective hope, aspiration and shared prosperity for its people, today and well into the future. It is time to make Zimbabwe beautiful again.

No one, no matter how strong, can run up a hill carrying on their back piles of sand. The $21 billion debt of Zimbabwe, of which the bulk is actually arrears, has made arrears the new debt stacked like piles of sandbags on the back of Zimbabwe.

We all agree we must play our part to correct this anomaly and give a new lease of life to this nation and its people so Zimbabwe can run again.

Adesina pleaded with institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to finance new loans for Zimbabwe and forgive or reduce old debts.

More: Pindula News