Zimbabwe to dump loss-making parastatals

MUTARE - The government is going to privatise or commercialise some of its loss-making parastatals, Finance Minister Tendai Biti said last week.

Addressing a breakfast meeting organised by the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) in Mutare, Biti said an inter-ministerial committee was working on a programme to see which government-owned companies could be offloaded because they were a burden to the fiscus or which ones could be commercialised and turned into profitable operations.

He said: "The government will soon privatise or commercialise some of the parastatals that are non-performing. The inter-ministerial committee is working on this programme so that we can categories some of the parastatals to see whether they should be commercialized (or privatized)."

The International Monetary Fund and local analysts have long called on the government to privatise non-performing parastatals or allow them to charge economic prices to stop them from perpetually draining the national treasury.

Among some of the government's perennially under-performing companies are the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe, Air Zimbabwe, Grain Marketing Board, National Railways of Zimbabwe and the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority.

Own Correspondent