Zambian Government and international creditors at daggers drawn as Tuesday virtual meeting draws near.
By Richard Aaron Ngoma
International creditors who the Zambian government has begged that they suspend its interest payments for six months, have tough questions to ask Lusaka via a video chat planned for Tuesday 29th September 2020.
The lenders will demand that Zambia shows its prudence by retiring the Eurobonds, coin by coin. They will also insist on a sincere expose’ of the Chinese loans exposure and how Lusaka intends to repay the huge indebtedness to Beijing. They will express their concern that if loan interest is suspended, the finances will used to entrench President Lungu’s despotic rule but most worryingly, used to service the Chinese debt, at a time when President Trump and Xi Jinping are fighting a vicious economic war.
Zambia owes China huge amounts of money believed to be in billions of dollars through the construction of the Sino Hydropower station and other infrastructure, and the creditors will advance hair raising concerns that their money will fund China, a situation that Washington and European Capitals will find detastable and utterly unacceptable.
Diplomatic sources say that the creditors may warn Lusaka, that if no plausible explanation backed by concrete evidence is advanced, they may request for an American Federal Investigations probe, inorder to ascertain the truth, as most of the Eurobond was transacted from American Banks.
Impeccable sources conclude that the Tuesday virtual meeting wouldn’t be an Indaba any heavily indebted government would be looking forward to having.