Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. FINANCE, Economic Development and Investment Promotion minister Mthuli Ncube has told Parliament that the government is eyeing a bridge financing facility to extinguish the country’s mounting debt, which has now reached approximately US$28 billion.
While official government figures put the total debt at around US$21-28 billion, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) revealed in its 2025 Article IV Consultation Report that Zimbabwe’s external debt alone stood at US$16,7 billion as of end-2024, with total public debt reaching US$23,3 billion.
The debt comprises external debt owed to multilateral financial institutions, including the World Bank and the African Development Bank (AfDB), among others.
Domestic debt is estimated to be between US$500 million and US$14 billion according to different assessments.
Kwekwe legislator Corban Madzivanyika described the debt as “huge and horrendous”.
“My follow-up question is that this current debt has reached around US$28 billion in total,” he said.
“As much as we have got this arrears clearance programme and the structural dialogue platform, can the Hon minister enlighten this House?
“What plans do they have to extinguish this huge and horrendous debt?”
In response, Ncube outlined a two-phase strategy centred on securing a “24-hour loan” from a yet-to-be-named bridge funding provider.
“So, the standard approach involves identifying what we call a bridge funding provider or champion, who will then give us a 24-hour loan. Before that, what you need is what you call a set-aside from the African Development Fund, which is the soft window of the African Development Bank and also from the AIDA, which is the soft window of the World Bank,” Ncube said.
“That set-aside, to the order of US$2,5 billion, or supplemented by other resources, is what is needed to pay back the provider of the 24-hour loan of US$2,5 billion.”
Ncube said he expected to reach that stage by the second quarter of next year, allowing Zimbabwe to clear arrears with the two Bretton Woods institutions.
“So, we expect to be at that stage, I would say, in the second quarter of next year, we should be able to then deal with the arrears, at least from the World Bank and the AfDB, which are large indeed,” he noted.
“If we can do that, we will make quite a bit of progress towards clearing our arrears.”
He added that the European Investment Bank had shown “quite a lot of generosity” and was willing to consider waiving interest and penalties, though he stressed that no formal announcement had been made.
Ncube said the government would move to Phase 2 to secure an Upper Credit Tranche-level programme with the IMF to unlock direct budget financing and pave the way for debt restructuring talks with the Paris Club of 17 bilateral creditors.
“When we start implementing that programme, we then negotiate with the Paris Club to restructure the bilateral debt with the 17 Paris Club partners.
“By the way, we are already paying them tokens, which is a sign of goodwill.
“We want to be good debtors, rather than bad debtors.”
Opposition legislator Edwin Mushoriwa, however, noted that Ncube has failed to address the domestic component of the debt.
“Hon Madzivanyika asked the Hon minister about the US$28 billion. The Hon minister did not really talk about part of the debt, which is the domestic debt — reasonable at US$500 million to around US$14 billion — and that omission needs to be addressed,” Mushoriwa said.
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