Former Zimbabwe Finance Minister, Tendai Biti, has unpacked the shocking state of Zimbabwe’s debt levels. Writing on X, Biti said:
The recent release of Zimbabwe’s Public Debt Report for the 2024 financial year has unveiled a disturbing picture of the nation’s financial health. According to a series of posts by Zimbabwean politician and lawyer, Tendai Biti, the country is drowning in a sea of debt, and the government’s approach to managing it is both questionable and potentially illegal.
The posts, which include images of the report itself, highlight several key concerns.
A Dubious Debt Repayment Scheme
Biti claims that the regime has been using debt repayments as a “new method of looting.” He alleges that in the past ten months, billions of dollars in debt repayments have been made to “local cartels,” a move he says is in flagrant breach of the country’s constitution, public debt laws, and international law.
He points out that by June of this year, the government had already paid out a staggering US$462.29 million in debt repayments. An alarming US$286 million of that amount was paid for domestic Treasury Bills (TBs) to a company called Zvigananda. Meanwhile, only a tiny fraction of the total—just US$2.8 million—was paid to traditional, legitimate lenders. This disparity raises serious questions about the government’s priorities and who is truly benefiting from these payments.
The Problem of Quasi-Fiscal Debts
A significant portion of the payments, Biti notes, are related to “legacy quasi-fiscal domestic debts” of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ). These debts, he says, were never properly verified or validated. He states that the bills to assume these debts were “sneaked” into Parliament, bypassing proper scrutiny. This lack of transparency undermines any effort to establish trust and a clear track record in debt management.
Zimbabwe’s Unsustainable Debt Burden
The numbers themselves are shocking. Zimbabwe’s official stock of public debt is US$21.5 billion, with an additional US$8.9 billion in domestic debt. Biti argues that this immense burden has pushed the country into debt distress, rendering it technically insolvent.
He also notes that the country defaulted on its international debt obligations back in the early 1990s. Despite this, he argues the government is now finding billions of dollars to pay off questionable domestic debts while neglecting its obligations to international creditors and crucial social services.
A Call for Transparency
Biti argues that true debt relief requires a commitment to transparency, fairness, and equal treatment for all creditors—principles he believes are absent from the regime’s lexicon. He emphasizes that securing a Staff Monitored Program (SMP) with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a voluntary process that is essential for establishing trust and a credible track record.
The information from the 2025 Mid-Term Budget Review and the 2024 Public Debt Reports, according to Biti, is “as shocking as they are choking,” revealing a system that is bleeding the country dry for the benefit of a select few. The current approach to debt is not a solution, but rather a symptom of a deeper problem of corruption and a “kleptocracy.”
This situation raises a critical question: when a country is technically insolvent and its government is prioritizing a select group of creditors with dubious debts, what hope is there for the ordinary citizens who rely on public services and social development?
