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aimed at clearing inter-parastatals debt, a Cabinet Minister has said.
The meeting follows the release of the inter-parastatal debt strategy document by Government recently and has been discussed by the Council of Ministers.
State Enterprises and Parastatals Minister Gorden Moyo told Business Chronicle that after the meeting, the inter-parastatal debt strategy will be taken to Cabinet for approval.
“In the first week of May, we will convene a strategic meeting where various stakeholders are expected to deal thoroughly with strategies of ensuring that the public entities are able to clear debts among and between themselves.
“The meeting will be attended by stakeholders that include officials from my ministry and the Ministry of Finance, Comptroller and Auditor General, the parastatals themselves, and debt clearing experts from World Bank and the International Monetary Fund as well as statutory bodies such as the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority,” he said.
It is hoped that although the debt strategy would take a leaf from other countries, it will be based on homegrown solutions relevant to Zimbabwean situation.
In January this year, Minister Moyo said the public utilities had accumulated inter-parastatal debts of about $1 billion.
Some of the options that Government intends to pursue to ensure the parastatals were relieved of their indebtedness include debt swapping where the entities would render services in relation to the amount owed.
Minister Moyo said the Government was concerned over state enterprises and parastatals indebtedness to one another.
The Government was working on adopting the inter-parastatal debt management strategy with a three-pronged approach.
“To make sure working capital is available in parastatals, to ensure that balance sheets for our public entities are positive as well as making sure that our entities are attractive to investors,” said Minister Moyo, adding that the entities were hamstrung by a vicious cycle of indebtedness to one another.
The interlocking chain of debt among public entities has generated negative spill-over effects in the whole economy.
State enterprises and parastatals have come under public spotlight for poor performance in terms of service provision owing to huge debts overhang among other challenges.
Zimbabwe has 78 parastatals.
Due to gross mismanagement, corruption and lack of corporate governance, some of the entities instead of contributing to national economic growth were milking the Government through underperformance.
Online Reporter