Abstract:
Access to debt relief measures and a concomitant discharge of debts are
some of the most fundamental elements of an effective natural person
debt relief system. Failure to gain access to debt relief measures – due to,
among others, stringent access requirements has plagued No Income No
Asset (NINA) debtors in many jurisdictions worldwide. In response to this
plight of NINA debtors, a remarkable trend in insolvency law has been
witnessed which seeks to accommodate the needs of this widely excluded
group of debtors. Zimbabwe is one of the countries which has responded
positively to this trend by reforming its natural person debt relief system.
This has seen the introduction of a consolidated Insolvency Act 7 of 2018.
The Insolvency Act introduces the novel pre-liquidation and postliquidation
compositions to the debt relief system. This paper examines
the treatment of NINA debtors in the recently reformed natural person
debt relief system of Zimbabwe. This examination has reviewed that the
natural person debt relief system affords relief to over-committed debtors
with excess income and/or disposable assets while ostracising NINA
debtors. Additionally, this paper also juxtaposed Zimbabwe’s natural
person debt relief system with internationally regarded principles and
policies in insolvency law as outlined in the World Bank Report on the
treatment of the insolvency natural persons and provided necessary recommendation for the reform of the prevailing debt relief measures.
