By Staff Reporter
Finance and Economic Development minister Mthuli Ncube claims Zimbabwe has lost at least US$42 billion because of sanctions imposed on the country by western powers since 2003.
The amount is more than double the size of Zimbabwe’s economy.
The European Union and the United States have recently renewed sanctions on Zimbabwe while other countries like Britain and Canada are expected to follow suit.
They mainly cite human rights violations and insufficient political and economic reforms as a pretext to extent the embargos.
Speaking at a youth program in Gweru Saturday, Ncube said the country is reeling from the effects of sanctions.
“The over US$42 billion which we have lost since 2002 is almost double our economy which stands at US$25 billion. That’s quite a huge margin and people need to realise the effects of such a loss,” Ncube said.
“Almost US$4,5 billion of that money was intended for donor support and US$18 billion was for financial support. Banks lost over 100 corresponding resources. We experienced massive loss of jobs and we were unable to create jobs easily. We have lost foreign direct investment,” he said.
“FDI has been restricted and investors would be fearing to associate with us for fear of these sanctions. If you are to look at the FDI inflows in the 80s, they were about US$8 million per year, they increased to US$95 million in the 90s but then dropped to US$20 million per annum in the 2000s,” Ncube said.
