The United States of America’s ambassador to Zimbabwe, Brian Nichols, said that the Zimbabwean government is using the so-called West imposed-sanctions as a convenient scapegoat to distract the public from the real reasons behind Zimbabwe’s economic challenges.
Writing for the NewsDay, Nichols postulated that the real reasons behind Zimbabwe’s economic malaise are corruption, economic mismanagement, and failure to respect human rights and uphold the rule of law. He wrote:
The greatest sanctions on Zimbabwe are the limitations the country imposes on itself. Zimbabwe is ranked 160 out of 175 nations on Transparency International’s corruption list.
Zimbabwe loses more than US$1 billion per year to corruption. That’s huge compared to the size of Zimbabwe’s entire economy — around US$26 billion.
The government says fighting corruption is a priority but have government and government-connected perpetrators been held accountable? No.
Meanwhile, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has been lobbying for the removal of the sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by Western countries, arguing that the embargo negatively affects the whole sub-region.
To that end, SADC has designated the 25th of October this year as a day for calling for the sanctions’ removal in solidarity with Zimbabwe.