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Opposition Patriotic Front (PF) has called on the government to settle the outstanding payments due to contractors and suppliers.
Presidential candidate Emmanuel Mwamba said in reaction to the announcement by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that its president Kristalina Georgieva will visit Zambia, said government focus and efforts have been spent on resolving its International and foreign debt, totally neglecting its domestic debt.
Mwamba said the local debt of K76.8 billion was too huge to withhold from the local economy and has destroyed companies, small and medium enterprises.
He said it was clear that the government was determined to impoverish its own citizens by withholding payments for public works done by the private sector and supplies of goods submitted to government ministries and agencies.
Mwamba said the excuse that the local debt was being audited was no longer tenable as the consultants were given two months to do the work and submit reports.
He said the government should not be allowed to ‘willfully’ bankrupt local businesses for flimsy and unfounded reasons such as the entities were associated with the former ruling party.
In July 2022, Ministry of Finance appointed; Ernest and Young (EY) Advisory Services, PwC, Client Focus Solutions Chartered Accountants; CYMA Chartered Public Accountants and Management Consultants and Mark Daniels Chartered Accountants to audit the local debt accrued by the government.
The areas of focus said to have included value-added tax refunds, fuel arrears, farmer input-support program arrears, salaries and road contract arrears and general goods and services arrears.
The exercise was expected to take two months to complete and at the end of which the consultants were expected to submit their final reports.
Mwamba called on the government to release the audit reports and pay the suppliers and contractors adding that the audit exercise gobbled K16.8 million.
Mwamba said the party was concerned about delays for government to obtain the much publicised $1.3billion IMF Bail-out.
Also read:IMF Chief’s visit, a sign of growing confidence in Zambia’s economy (zambiamonitor.com)
He said it was clear that the bail-out depended on the agreement by creditors to restructure or write-off Zambia’s debt.
He said Zambia, like Chad and Ethiopia owed China more money than any other creditors and the creditors’ committees so far established in these countries faced challenges to resolve the issues.
He said in a statement that President Hakainde Hichilema should heighten diplomatic engagements with China to help resolve the debt crisis.
“All these visits to Newyork, Washington or Dubai have yielded nothing but mere Memoranda of Understanding. A visit to China will however resolve the current biggest economic crisis brought about as a result of the foreign debt”, Mwamba said.
Mwamba claimed that it was clear that even the proposed meeting of the creditors committee due to take place in India on the sidelines of the G20 Meeting was a meeting for mere consultations as it was outside the common framework for debt treatment, a multilateral mechanism for debt restructuring and debt forgiveness.
He said without holding a formal creditors’ meeting will further delay the issuance of the IMF Bail-out package to Zambia.
Mwamba called on the Minister of Finance to concentrate on mobilizing local resources through collection of fair and just taxes especially from the mining sector rather than chasing the wind provided by the IMF.
He said the government was running the country on accumulating more debts as seen in national budget financing through treasury bills and government bonds whose debt had risen to K203 billion ($11.9billion).
He warned that the growing budget deficit will destabilise any measures to grow the economy and must be plugged by raising adequate domestic revenue especially through the mining sector.
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