By Staff Reporter
THE European Union ambassador to Zimbabwe Jobst von Kirchmann says the government must redouble good governance efforts if debt resolution is to see the light of the day.
The EU diplomat urged the government to redouble its efforts on governance reforms, one of three key pillars in the arrears clearance and debt resolution process. Other pillars are economic reforms and payment of compensation to former farm owners, including those whose land was protected under the Bilateral Investment Protection and Promotion Agreements (BIPPA).
He, however, hailed the government for registering improvement in seven indicators including public procurement, which increased by a factor of 300%.
“There are also other indicators, nine were compared with the baseline, which the government proposed in the national development strategy and also in this process, it went down.
“I will not use all nine, but I will only take the five that have deteriorated. The big five are the freedom of assembly [which] went down by 16,4%, democratic elections went down by 17,3%, the impartiality of the judicial system went down by 43,6% the civil society space went down by 46,1% and the corruption per section index by 12,5%,” the diplomat said.
Von Kirchmann said it was important for government to show what it is doing to improve the indicators.
He challenged the government to put a timeline on its efforts in dealing with indicators that are still underperforming, revealing that the Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs ministry committed itself to meeting with civil society before the registration deadline on July 11 this year.
The government has set a registration deadline for PVOs, July 11.
Von Kirchmann challenged the government to look into how the Act can be implemented without basically putting civil society in a situation where it cannot register.
“I think that is very important because some of the organisations have been refused because they are in illegality and then they would be facing a two-year prison sentence simply because they could not register,” he said.
The ambassador called on the government to reach out to all relevant farming associations to make sure that consensus is reached on outstanding issues.
“The question of the return of land or bankable transferable leases for BIPPA farmers who opted out of compensation also needs to be addressed as per the objectives set forth by the government,” von Kirchmann said.
“We are ready to support Zimbabwe in addressing these issues on the question of land tenure and investor confidence. It’s a firm belief that stronger land systems will lead to more investor confidence and important next steps include the design of the registries loan structures.”
