IMF aims to complete Zambia’s debt restructuring by year-end

THE International Monetary Fund (IMF) is hopeful that the debt restructuring efforts for could be completed by the end of this year and pave way for more counties to seek help.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva who was speaking with civil society groups at the start of the annual IMF and World Bank meetings, said a Group of 20 initiative launched in late 2020 had been slow to become operational, but was upbeat about the cases of Chad and Zambia, who together with Ethiopia she said were the first to request for help.

According to Reuters, Ms Georgieva said the IMF was pressing for more predictability and timely resolution of requests for help under the G20 Common Framework, stating it was critical to expand the framework to include middle-income countries.

Ms Georgieva said the IMF was also working on how to include collective action clauses in debt contracts being signed that would allow immediate suspension of debt service payments if a country experienced a climate shock.

IMF and World Bank officials have repeatedly singled out China, the biggest creditor to many African countries, and private sector creditors for dragging their feet on reducing countries’ debt burdens. The Zambian government on Friday told investors it hoped it would agree debt relief terms with official creditors by the end of the year or early 2023.

Zambia was the first African country to default during the Covid-19 era as it struggled with debt that reached 133 percent of GDP at the end of 2021.

The IMF is estimating that Zambia needs $8.4 billion of “cash debt relief, cutting both interest payments and loan repayments from 2022 to 2025. The Fund in late August approved a $1.3 billion, threeyear loan to Zambia, a crucial step in the country’s quest to restructure its debts.