Africa-Press – Zambia. An economist has welcomed Zambia and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reaching a Staff Level Agreement (SLA). Kelvin Chisanga says the agreement could help Zambia reach an expeditious solution between the country and its creditors regarding debt restructuring.
Speaking in a telephone interview, Mr Chisanga is hopeful that the debt restructuring process which has taken long to be resolved could soon meet a solution. He said the agreement also brings a huge amount of credibility to the debt restructuring process.
“It basically shows to say that futuristically, we are looking at trying to work right in tandem with the IMF conditions and terms which is giving us a lot of energy for us to push through. Yes, we have had a situation where the debt delays have been causing a lot of issues but I’m sure that the involvement of the IMF team, having to agree another extension programme which rallies from this time to next 12 months, shows a lot of credibility on our side,” he said.
Mr Chisanga said the longer the process of debt restructuring is taking, the more impact it is having on Zambia’s foreign exchange status. “The longer we take with the debt process, the more we even seeing a lot of overheating factors which are now giving an offshoot effect through the exchange market. Even when you look at the overall economic factors, we are experiencing uncertainty around the whole economic structure,” Mr Chisanga said.
The Zambian Government on Thursday announced that it had reached a Staff Level Agreement with IMF on economic and financial policies that will anchor programme implementation for the next 12 months.
This entails that once approved by the IMF management, Zambia will access 188 million United States dollars which will bring the total of IMF financial disbursement under the arrangement to 376 million United States dollars.
For More News And Analysis About Zambia Follow Africa-Press
