Zimbabwe: Forex Rate Dispute Stalls Projects
 |
 Published by the government of Zimbabwe |
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
The Herald (Harare)
11 September 2008
Posted to the web 11 September 2008
Harare
HEALTH programmes funded by the Global Fund to Combat HIV and Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria locally have stalled after service providers failed to agree with the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe on the exchange rate to be used.
According to sources, the service providers had sought to apply the United Nations rate, which is almost equivalent to the parallel market rate, while the central bank wanted this to be based on the interbank rate.
An agreement had, however, earlier been reached for service providers to use whatever exchange rate and that in the event of a shortfall, the central bank would top up.
The agreement led to the appointment of a fund manager in the form of a local banking institution tasked to work out the difference and negotiate with Government for payment.
However, claimed the sources, this had not been happening over the past months, resulting in the disruption of training of community workers, feeding programmes, community mobilisation and vehicle servicing, among other undertakings.
This has created pessimism among sub-recipients regarding approval of Zimbabwe's proposal for the next round, which is currently under consideration by the United Nations body, should allocations from the previous rounds remain dormant in the Government's foreign currency account.
Head of the Aids and TB unit in the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare Dr Owen Mugurungi confirmed the situation, saying few programmes such as purchasing of spare parts and medication, which are done outside the country, were running.
Malaria manager in the Ministry of Health Dr Portia Manangazira said the national spraying programme might be delayed owing to lack of servicing of vehicles.
Contacted for comment, the Minister of Health and Child Welfare, Dr David Parirenyatwa, said negotiations were currently going on with the Reserve Bank to allow sub-recipients access the money.
Relevant Links
"The central bank is working on the issue ," he said.
Read comments. Write your own.
|
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Copyright © 2008 The Herald. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Make allAfrica.com your home page
|
RSS Feed
Sign up for FREE daily 'top headlines' by email >> | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | My Account | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
