THE recently enacted Private Voluntary Organisations (PVO) Amendment Act has been flagged as a setback to Zimbabwe’s arrears clearance and debt resolution process amid calls for the country to accelerate governance reforms.
A meeting held on the sidelines of the African Development Bank (AfDB) annual meetings on Monday heard that the legislation has muddied the process.
European Union ambassador to Zimbabwe Jobst von Kirchmann told delegates attending the Zimbabwe arrears clearance and debt resolution meeting that stakeholders had hoped that President Emmerson Mnangagwa would not sign the Bill into law.
“Unfortunately, that was done, and in our bush walk, I think we walked a couple of kilometres back, but now we have to look forward. That’s why I said we have to look into where we would like to go, reaching arrears clearance and debt resolution,” he said.
Zimbabwe has enlisted AfDB president Akinwumi Adesina and former Mozambican president Joaquim Chissano to drive the process to extinguish the country's debt to multilateral and bilateral creditors.
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.
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“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.”
Former president of the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) Andrew Pascoe said 977 applications for compensation had been received, representing approximately 25% of the properties registered on the valuation consortium’s database, with 378 receiving their 1% upfront capital payments in real money.
He said the farmers had also received their Treasury bonds.
He, however, revealed that the compensation process was facing some challenges which needed to be addressed.
“Many of those who have not applied are holding on to assurances being made by the new CFU leadership that they will negotiate improved payment terms under the global compensation deed while our honourable Minister of Finance made it abundantly clear in 2023 that the payment plan which he presented to us was the best he could offer,” he said.
“In addition, a large number of those who have not applied cite a lack of trust in the government’s ability to honour the Treasury bonds as the main reason for not applying.
“This is where I believe our development partners and the international finance institutions could play an important role if a mechanism could be negotiated between the Zimbabwe government and our development partners which would put in place an international guarantee of the compensation Treasury bonds.
“There would be an immediate and massive change to their value, tradability and appeal as a mechanism for settling the compensation liability and I have no doubt that we would see a majority of former farm owners signing up to accept the compensation offer.”
Chissano challenged the government to work on the reform indicators that are lagging.
“There is no question that excellent progress has been made on economic reforms. We almost ticked all the boxes as far as the required reforms are concerned.
“However, we are yet to score a goal; we need to finalise the negotiations and sign the SMP, a framework that will anchor all economic reform progresses,” he said.
Chissano said the latest assessment indicated that performance in some indicators was below the desired parameters.
“One issue that has overshadowed performance in the governance pillar is the problematic civil society organisations space. The recent enactment of the Private Voluntary Organisations Amendment Bill has added to this drama,” he said.
“We encourage both the government and the civil society organisations to continue their dialogue towards finding a legislation that is agreeable to all parties.”
Chissano also flagged the governance reforms, which are lagging.
“Work must be done to reverse this situation. Therefore, decisive action should be taken to address the few aspects of governance reforms that keep overshadowing the good work being done.
“Efforts must be directed to reversing the trend of the key governance indicators such as democratic elections, freedom of expression and association, civic space, impartiality of the Judiciary and corruption that have been performing disappointingly,” he said.
