ActionAid Zambia (AAZ) would like to commend the Zambian Government and the Creditor Committee of Zambia, chaired by China, for their important and unprecedented strides towards debt restructuring and ultimate cancellation. Zambia’s debt saga has been an issue of debate for several years now – and the urgency for resolving this has been escalated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the past decade, the government had embarked on ambitious infrastructure development that fueled the need for domestic and external financing. The global economic fallout following Covid and the war in Ukraine made government debt unsustainable, rising as it did from 23.8 percent of GDP in 2014 to 141.3 percent of GDP by 2020(1). This triggered Zambia’s debt default and led to the present plans to restructure the debt.
ACTION Aid Zambia (AAZ) has commended the move by government to engage independent auditing firms in undertaking comprehensive processes related to accumulation and audit arrears in various public institutions.AAZ states that the move is long overdue given the tight fiscal space and unsustainabl
The Zambian government on Thursday was hailed over its decision to undertake an evaluation exercise on the country's domestic debt. On Tuesday, the country's finance ministry said it has completed processes for engagement of independent consultants for evaluation of processes related to the accumulation and audit of domestic arrears owed…