Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa has said that banks should lend money to farmers and to the private sector, as the government had absorbed almost one billion dollars in bad debts from the banks.
Speaking at a Command Agriculture workshop, Chinamasa said:
I must say banks have no excuse not to lend to farmers and the private sector. We have taken nearly $1 billion of their bad debts from their balance sheet. We have cleaned their balance sheet in order to whet their appetite for more lending to the productive sector including agriculture
Those bad debts are now to government through a company that we formed. So, they have no reason not to lend to the productive sector including agriculture.
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