IMF deal will succeed, says -Mutati
By ANNIE ZULU FINANCE Minister Felix Mutati has assured that Government’s engagement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will be a success.
Mr Mutati said there was no room for failure under the programme that Government had engaged with the IMF.
The Minister was responding to Katombola Member of Parliament Derrick Livune in Parliament yesterday who wanted to find out the consequences that the country might suffer in an event that Government fails to secure the fund from the IMF.
“The answer is that, under the programme that we have engaged with them, there is no option but to succeed and we shall succeed,” Mr Mutati said.
And Mr Mutati has indicated that Government was keen to accelerate the conclusion of its discussions with the IMF.
“Before the end of this year we are going to have what is called a staff mission that is going to validate the information that has been prepared and upon that validation, we then can have a timetable for conclusion of the discussion,” Mr Mutati said.
Meanwhile, the Minister told Parliament in a Ministerial statement that the major outstanding issues under Government’s discussions with the IMF were the need to take measures to slow down the pace of debt accumulation and scaling up fiscal consolidation measures, particularly expenditure restraint.
He said Cabinet has since resolved into suspension of new non-concessional borrowing.
Mr Mutati said Cabinet had also resolved that no commercial contracts that require debt financing should be signed without Treasury authority and that tender and legal approvals should not be given where funds were not available.
“Our task as a nation is to ensure that we borrow within our capacity to pay and refocus expenditures while enhancing domestic resource mobilisation,” he said.
He also observed that there was need to utilise a key mandate of the IMF of providing Balance of Payment Support to members experiencing balance of payments problems as has been the case for Zambia since 2015. Mr Mutati added that with the provision of Balance of Payments Support, the IMF was also a catalyst to access budget support and other in-flows from multilateral and bilateral cooperating partners.
He further said having a programme would enhance flows from private sector investors and reduce negative sentiments on the investment climate in the country.
"This is because many investors mainly rely on the IMF for the assessment of the country's investment climate," he said.