Zimbabwe Public Debt

Zimbabwe Public Debt is the amount the country owes to organisations, international organisations such as the IMF, the World Bank, and the African Development Bank (ADB), individuals, and other governments. According to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ), the total debt stood at US$23.53 billion as at January 2019.

Transparency on Zimbabwe's Public Debt

The government has been accused of not being transparent on the country's public debt. In July 2019, legislators demanded that the Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube disclose the terms and conditions of all public loans and loan guarantees that have not been published. The legislators accused the government of understating the public debt.^[1]

Definition

Public debt, also called Sovereign Debt, is how much Zimbabwe (or any country) owes to organisations, individuals or other governments internationally. The government borrows or incurs such debt to finance its operations usually because the revenue it collects via taxes is inadequate. The debt can also be incurred when the government takes on the debt of another organisation for which it acted as a guarantor or when it bails a critical organisation out.