Africa-Press – Zambia. Veteran Politician Akashambatwa Mbikusita Lewanika has charged that there is nothing the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will bring to Zambia that they did not bring in the past other than impoverishing the country.
Mr Lewanika told the local radio station QFM that IMF conditions and their interest, as well as objectives, have never changed, recalling that when the United National Independence Party (UNIP) administration brought the IMF and the World Bank in 1986 it led to food riots in the streets.
Mr Lewanika said that it is backward to think that Zambia or indeed Africa cannot develop without the International Monetary Fund, stating that genuine development is always self-dependent, stressing that the country should first sort out the economy it wants as well as its political system.
Mr Lewanika said that the idea of foreigners deciding what the problem is, what the solution is and where to invest in a country is a major problem which must be addressed.
Yesterday the Government said that the International Monetary Fund will approve the $1.4 billion loan and associated economic program by August or September this year.
Finance Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane said that the discussions with official creditors to provide Zambia with the financing assurances it needs to get IMF board approval for the economic program will not take more than a month.
Dr Situmbeko made these remarks when he met IMF Deputy Managing Director Antoinette Sayeh at his office. A the same meeting the IMF Deputy Managing Director Antoinette Sayeh urged creditors to expeditiously come to an agreement with Zambia on the debt relief so that the programme can be formalized.
The visiting International Monetary Fund Deputy Managing Director this morning met with the Public Accounts and Budget and Planning Committees at Parliament in her continued interactions with the government focused on recent economic developments.
Discussed at the meeting requested by the IMF team was the overall engagement of the Fund with Zambia including in the context of the ongoing IMF Bailout programme negotiations. Also discussed was today’s Creditors meeting between Zambia’s Official Creditor Committee and the IMF, organized under the G20 Common
The framework at which the country will present its economic reform agenda and the progress made since it reached the Staff-Level-Agreement with the IMF in December 2021, reforms pertaining to Public Finance Management, Integrated Financial Systems and Public Debt Management in relation to what is happening in the region.
Speaking after the meeting, Public Accounts Committee Chairperson Warren Mwambazi said the members of the two committees probed the IMF Deputy Managing Director on the status of the bailout package among other issues that have been of concern as Zambia is pursuing the loan
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