On whether local ownership laws will be changed:
“Initially the indigenization law covered all minerals. The minute you landed at Harare airport, 51 percent of your money was ours. That has changed. I only excluded diamonds and platinum for now. We do not have a real or deep rooted or well interrogated policy on diamonds or platinum. We still are working as a government what policy should we have on platinum. What policy should we have on diamonds. So before we settle that issue, diamond policy, platinum policy. We feel that we put those brakes but down the line when we are satisfied that this can also go into the open basket we will do so.”
On Zimbabwe’s plans to settle its international debt arrears:
“There are limitations to engaging with Bretton Woods institutions. The limitations arise as a result of our arrears with those institutions but they are giving positive indications that they would want to accommodate us, they would want us to show our commitment in paying our arrears to these institutions. We believe that as we pay, or seem to be paying, our arrears I believe that they will embrace us in the same manner they are embracing other countries, other developing countries in the world.”
On whether Zimbabwe intends selling an international bond:
“We are still in discussion with the Reserve Bank and the Minister of Finance on that score. We are saying this has happened to other countries and it helped them, can we not do it? We think we should do it. There is a possibility of us benefiting from that approach. If this succeeds we would really need a substantial injection into our economy, in particular into the productive economy. Basically a capital injection into capital projects. Infrastructure development is what we want. Dams, roads.”
On whether the size of the civil service will be reduced:
“The economy had shrunk. Many people misunderstand. They think that we have an oversized public service. That’s not the issue. What has happened is the public service is normal, what is not normal is the cake that must be shared. We must focus on growing the cake rather than attacking the civil service, saying it must be reduced. We focus on growing the economy and growing the cake.”
On whether the currency regime will be changed:
“There are two schools of thought. One school of thought is that we must begin to build our own reserves. We are a country that is endowed with minerals. Like gold and so on. The one school of thought is that we must have 10 percent of our gold used to build our reserves and the same for diamonds and that way we will reach a stage where we believe we can launch our own currency because it will be backed by these reserves. The fact that we don’t have our own currency is a constraint in domestic transactions. We are trying our best to build our reserves and when we feel yes, we are at a stage where can move on to having a currency, we will move on.”
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