The ongoing constitutional reform process in Zimbabwe has opened up immense opportunities for the country to create a new framework for sound economic management. An area where this transformation is urgently needed, and will be greatly felt is public fi nance management, particularly in administration of public debt.
An analysis of the public fi nance framework of the draft using various benchmarks for sound debt management shows that the proposed draft has some improvements on the current constitution in terms of enhanced accountability, transparency and inclusiveness in the loan contraction and debt management process, with scope for improvement. This will benefit citizens, who ultimately owe the public debt and pay for it through the taxes they pay, as well as suffer its negative impacts in human development terms when it becomes unsustainable.