The International Monetary Fund has maintained discussions on a possible Fund-supported program with Zambia remains suspended.
The IMF says the talks remain frozen because the Zambian government’s borrowing plans compromised the country’s debt sustainability.
This is according to a statement by IMF Spokesman Gerry Rice during a news conference at the IMF Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Mr Rice’s statement throws cold water on the Zambian government’s latest moves to reactive the IMF talks after key officials claimed that the talks are back on track.
On Thursday, Secretary to the Treasury Fredson Yamba said a team of officials from the IMF is expected in Zambia next week to continue the consultative process for a bailout package.
Mr Yamba said the IMF officials’ visit to Zambia follows the successful submission of data which the global lender requested for and that the meeting is expected to reconcile figures between the two parties and find the best way forward.
But Mr Rice said there are no pending talks over an IMF bailout package for Zambia.
“Reports that the government has provided the IMF with all the information needed for the purposes of reengaging with the program. Zambia hopes the program can be taken to IMF’s Board in September. Basically the question is: what’s the status? Is that true? To which I can say, again, on Zambia, discussions on a possible Fund-supported program have been suspended because the authority’s borrowing plans compromised the country’s debt sustainability and, in our view, undermine its macroeconomic stability,” Mr Rice said.
Mr. Rice added, “So on June 14, 2018, they authorities indeed announced a set of measures aimed at addressing these debt sustainability concerns. The Fund has not yet received the specifics of the authority’s new debt plans, nor the revised budget numbers, that include the impact of the recently-announced consolidation measures.”
“Therefore, it’s premature to discuss the appropriateness, the fitness, for any potential reengagement regarding a program discussion, which is consistent with the statement we had issued earlier this year.”
Janny Sikazwe is back muleti bufi?
@Tombwa, which Sikazwe works for IMF?
But ba PF muli mbwa.
The IMF know the true extent of our debt.
They are also aware of the bulging foreign bank accounts of Lungu and his cronies.
That is why they will rightly deny lending Zambia any money.
They know our president is a corrupt thief.
Burn baby Burn. Marketeers love the attention and loans. They will keep burning these SOBs
I thought Uncle Felix said that Zambia will borrow from the IMF on our own terms and not the IMF stipulated conditions when campaigning for Edgar? Jokers.
People with an informed brain can easily detect that this report was done by an armchair critic. Well talking about imf they denied Italy assistance just 3 weeks ago. Italy is in need of these funds like an other country. Sounds like imf is broke.
@Dizmo;
LOL – True! Felix Katati was singing about “home grown” economic policies – they must have grown up to be teen agers by now surely. In fact, these PF Mother fckers must have damaged the economy beyond our wildest dreams for the IMF to be crying out for more data and information.
IMF have been asking for data for more than one year now – why is Yamba not giving them? One week would be enough to compile the data and submit it to IMF – is Yamba hiding something?
Oval Head – The IMF just made a $50 billion dollar deal with Argentina. They are not broke.
These lazy dull Kaponyas do not understand that the were the system works…its like going to the bank and asking for a loan and the system rejects you based on your low credit rating and your reckless account activities..no matter how many times you go there no one can override the system.
*….do not understand how the system
If we would only be disciplined in our spending, we wouldn’t need all these loans.
I don’t blame IMF either. If a country’s leadership can borrow 1.2 billion to build build a road that would ordinarily cost about 100-200million. If a government can spend 1 million dollars on a scania fire truck(yes we will never forget or forgive this one), I wouldn’t give such a government a single dime bail them out. But I would strongly recommend the committal of such a government to either a mental institution or to prison, if I really wanted to help the country.
With or without IMF will still see tomorrow, we’re a sovereign state. Let IMF and its minions give ECL some governing space. Mind you IMF has no voters’ card, IMF has no constituency its us the Zambian people who willingly and overwhelmingly voted for ECL twice in a space of 1year and rejected Hakainde in the same period (2015 and 2016). HH and his disgruntled hired IMF will not impose themselves on us Zambians
So why do you keep going crawling to IMF? And how does voting come into this picture? This is the kind of attitude that keeps us poor. People can’t see beyond staying in power and enjoying the benefits. If we could just have some objective people analysing our situations and making decisions based on sound thinking after looking at facts. Sadly this is the kind of thinking in the corridors of power and those who have their ear.
Whooops! we can do away with them , that is my thinking…inkongole te kusova!
You must smoking something very strong based on your serious hallucinations you have just vomited!
Right keep it in your thinking
These chimbwi no plan theives masquerading as GRZ are just hopless …..after 3 to 4 years of fires gutting markets , they still haven’t done anything.
Just watch , the cycle will start again come December ….cholera will ravage our communities and lungu with lusambo and ka mwale will be wearing gum boots nafuti nafuti for a photo then fires will be gutting markets still no action.
All they know is borrowing and looting…..
Soon we will hear Mr Rice refuting this report as was the case with the British ambassador over the FIC report.
Stop taking weed! The situation is very serious now. The Govt wont be able to pay Civil Servants their September salaries and you are saying this sh.i.t here! Yamba is worried which is why he was caught telling pure lies which IMF does not want be associated with.
No idea how it is like to take weed. Maybe you can tell me.
@ Mbili Yakale
Loosing sense of reality and believing that pigs can fly or PF sort the sh!t they have created or organizing day of prayers and hoping for miracle
If you are not using weed, what are you using that cause your brain to go to “tilt”? PF manifesto?
I will tell you. What else, apart from weed can cause your brain to go to “tilt”? It is the agony of knowing that we don’t have credible and formidable opposition in Zambia. That’s what make my brain go to “tilt”. If we had, they would be winning elections. Losing 5 times to four different Presidential candidates isn’t something you can just wave off. Nothing to do with weed my brother.
Good!! NEVER GIVE THESE K0LW3’S MONEY
They will squander it buying Bootlickers & Cadres to campaign & Dance for Chakolwas 2021 nonsense.
P.F goons are proactive when it comes to campaigns, & NOT developing Zambia.
Where their is no vision people perish.
Amen
ZRA surpassed the threshold which they were targeted to collect by 1 billion kwacha.One wonders where all this money goes.Priorities are misplaced in allocation of resources.Most of the expenditure goes towards luxuries like futile presidential trips.There is a lot of mismanagement of national resources.Most of tax payers money is drained in a bottomless pit of corruption.Year in year out the Auditor General’s report exhibit grey areas in mismanagement of resources and no action is taken.We are a wasteful nation and we expect IMF and World Bank to subsidize our wastage.We need leadership in prudent management of resources.A home that is wasteful will never achieve the best for it’s households.
Indeed lungu and pf at work let them talk we will do the rest, who new that one day solwezi will be the way it is now the roads, malls etc. 2021 ni lungu nafuti nafuti, hh keep on dreaming with the stolen votes.
This is a good decision by the IMF.
Now LT why haven’t you reported on Kaizar Zulu’s drunkenness and near fatal accident… are you also on his payroll and you are chicken scared of him, huh?
“TONGAS ARE BORN AS TRIBALISTS AND BITTER PEOPLE” says Chishimba Kamwili. We can still survive and do better even without this IMF package. We know that this IMF has been biased against African nations in terms of granting loans. There are some Latin American nations that are worse off than Zambia in terms of debt risk but they have been loaned colossal sums of money by the same IMF, how can this be justified by IMF? . We have been through tougher economic challenges than these ones, all we need to do is to implement prudent financial management policies and political will to manage and liquidate the existing debts
And nobody will Yamba to task for misleading the nation!
Landenipo ba solwezi bushe u have not seen what is happening in solwezi is that the way it was 4 years ago, awe thanks to pf government for the development that we have seen especially in solwezi.
President Lungu and PF, must put the interest of Zambia first.
Think of people in the rurel areas starting from their leaders the kind of life there are leaving.
We need the funds to improve infrastructure and delivery of information to every corner of our country.
We should actually refuse IMF, because it is the way the US controls the world.
DEBT
Using the IMF and World Bank they throw loans to countries that they know will never pay back. That way they can control us. Many developed countries as we speak are shackled. Ghana is shackled now because it has oil.
REVOLUTIONS
If debt does not work they sponsor NGOs to try to change agenda. Russia banned NGOs because they knew their real agenda. Ukraine is an example of a country where the U.S used demonstrations to get rid of a Democratically elected govt.
THE HIT MAN
If Debt and revolutions don’t work they send in the Hit man examples of CIA sponsored assassinations are Panama (Omar Torrijos) and Equador (Jaime Roldós Aguilera).
WAR
Libya and Iraq are the most recent examples of techniques…
And what you you believe the Chinese are doing? They just took over a port in Sri Lanka because they couldn’t pay back the debt they owed. Same thing coming to Zambia. Already we know ZNBC as we know it is gone, NRDC, etc. What’s next??
THIS IS VERY GOOD NEWS FOR NOW. NO MORE IMF. JUST RELY ON HOME GROWN SOLUTIONS.
Home grown solutions like borrowing from the Chinese??!!
Please Zambia NEVER GO THAT ROUTE UNLESS you want to destroy everything we have achieved so far. Kindly seek counsel from KK.
@Sharon:
Ma.cende bako Sharon. Of course anyone would want to “destroy everything PF has achieved so far” which is just Poverty and nothing else! So who wouldn’t want to destroy that Zambian poverty? .
What has Zambia achieved apart from being in more debt.
Remember Mwanawasa left a foreign debt of $2billion…under Edgar Lungu its now close to $20 billion.
Thanks IMF, No money for a government that has irresponsibly over borrowed and keeps spitting on governance issues. Please, burn those fake documents and wait for a responsible government.
China is a shark which lends money purely to weaken the governance institutions of unsuspecting country and a corrupt government becomes a fertile land for all their manipulations and dehumanizing of the locals. Imagine how many Zambian are being shot physically, economically and psychologically every day?
IMF cannot give money to buy fire tenders & ambulances at five times the market value. They also cannot release any funds to build a dual carriageway at 3 times the normal price in the region. They have also seen that the so called austerity measures announced don’t apply to certain people going by dora’ s statement on the president’s travels and kaizer’ s destruction of public vehicles with impunity.
In summary, IMF does not give out loans to the delinquent.
jj, are you the same person as Chilyata, or you think he insults too much?
This is the same stance the IMF have had since March. As long as treasury does not show them the true extent of the debt, it’s not happening.
They are right about reckless borrowing which we screamed about. But IMF is supposed to support economies and keep in mind not to starve people for gov’t errors.
It’s the helpless people who suffer. If the plan is to cause a shift in voting then they fail as the alternatives favouring the people do not exist. They will reduce the country to pre debt forgiveness era, killing ordinary citizens.