wfn.org | Zimbabwean church leader decries debt burden on poor people

[FRANK_IMHOFF.parti@ecunet.org (FRANK IMHOFF)]

Government revenue absorbed by service of payments

HARARE, Zimbabwe/GENEVA, 23 July 1999 (lwi) - Bishop Ambrose Moyo of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Zimbabwe (ELCZ) has said that external debt
servicing is not only a burden for the coffers of the Zimbabwean government
but it is also making people "poorer and poorer."

According to reports received from the Ecumenical Documentation and
Information Center for Eastern and Southern Africa (EDICESA), the Lutheran
bishop told a recent workshop in Harare that "church owned hospitals which
also get grants from the government have been approaching their mother
churches for assistance, which the government has failed to provide. This
shows that even if our government gets something in terms of revenue, it is
soon absorbed by debt servicing, further exposing the poor to hardships."

"The Church is really concerned about the level of debt. People are
becoming poorer and poorer because of the burden of debt," EDICESA quotes
the Lutheran church leader as saying when he addressed participants in the
workshop - Zimbabwe's Debt Crisis and Its Impact on Development - organized
by the Zimbabwe Council of Churches (ZCC), of which the ELCZ is a member,
Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC), Zimbabwe Congress of Trade
Unions (ZCTU), Parliament of Zimbabwe and Germany's Friedrich Ebert Fund
(Friedrich Ebert Foundation).

Bishop Moyo noted that the areas most affected were those which dealt with
the social aspects of the ordinary Zimbabweans, such as education and
health. He called on fellow countrymen and women to rally behind the church
in supporting the Jubilee 2000 charter which is campaigning for the
cancellation of the debts of the world's poorest countries, and in dealing
with the plight of AIDS orphans where the government has failed to offer
assistance.

The ELCZ, with a membership of 100,000 is a member of the Lutheran World
Federation (LWF).

The workshop brought together members of parliament, church and civil
organizations and scholars to discuss the problems of debt in the Southern
African country and propose strategies to resolve the crisis.

According to EDICESA, latest figures produced by Zimbabwe's Ministry of
Finance indicate that the country with a population of 11 million people,
has an external debt of over Z$132 billion (about USD 3.5 billion),
representing 90.8 percent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

(The LWF is a global communion of 128 member churches in 70 countries
representing 58 million of the world's 61.5 million Lutherans. Its highest
decision making body is the Assembly, held every six or seven years.
Between Assemblies, the LWF is governed by a 49-member Council which meets
annually, and its Executive Committee.)

[Lutheran World Information is the information service of the Lutheran
World Federation (LWF). Unless specifically noted, material presented does
not represent positions or opinions of the LWF or of its various units.
Where the dateline of an article contains the notation (lwi), the material
may be freely reproduced with acknowledgment.]

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Lutheran World Information
Assistant Editor, English: Pauline Mumia
E-mail: pmu@lutheranworld.org
http://www.lutheranworld.org/