Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa
Chinamasa made the remarks here yesterday when he addressed business people at a meeting organized by the Confederation of the Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) Manicaland Chapter.
“We should not be worried about what happened in the past. We should now focus on the future of our country. We should now build confidence in ourselves as Zimbabweans. Firstly, we should now clean our image and reputation as a country in order for us to re-engage the West. Everyone thinks Zimbabwe is a very bad country, but, we are saying no. We need to engage those multi-national partnerships. Let them know that we are now a very good country,” he said.
Chinamasa said Zimbabwe had great potential and urged the international community to re-engage – saying the country had realized the mistakes that had led it to crumble economically.
“The hindering factor is that we don’t have access to capital and that is the issue that we are trying to address,” he explained.
He said international lending instutions were snubbing Zimbabwe because of its history.
“This what we need to work on, so that we attain that credibility,” said Chinamasa.
He said his counterpart in Zambia had requested $3 billion from the International Monetery Fund (IMF) but was surprised when it was given $7 billion.
“It surprised me because we have knocking on their doors (IMF) and we are getting nothing but my counterpart in Zambia was given double what he had requested,” said Chinamasa.
Economic analysts say the indigenization policy has stopped money flowing to the poverty-stricken country because of uncertainty over the security of investments.
17 years too late cde Chinamasa.
How ironic that Minister Chinamasa should be talking about Zimbabwe “cleaning up its bad image” when his party is the one looting billions of dollars and preparing to rig next year’s elections!