Zimbabwe’s finance minister Patrick Chinamasa has attributed the biting cash crunch being experienced in the country to international sanctions.
Civila servants and soldiers in Zimbabwe have had their wages delayed due to the cash crisis even as President Robert Mugabe faces rare protests.
Western countries imposed sanctions in 2001 on Mugabe’s government over allegations of vote-rigging and human rights abuses, which he rejects, while lenders such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have frozen financial aid since Harare defaulted in 1999.
Zimbabwe failed to pay the army on time for the second straight month, military sources said on Friday, and Chinamasa said the sanctions were hurting the government’s ability to meet its obligations.
“Sanctions crippled our capacity to own our international obligations (debt payment),” Reuters reports the finance minister to say.
