Balance debt repayment and management – CSOs

Balance debt repayment and management – CSOs
By KETRA KALUNGA
GOVERNMETN should focus on debt management and not get carried away by creditors promising to cancel or reschedule, because there are many others who should be attended to, Caritas Zambia has urged the government.
Caritas Zambia says Government should focus on how it would repay and manage the country’s debt by making sure that it is not carried away by creditors that might want to cancel or reschedule the debt and forget about other lenders.
Caritas Executive Director, Eugene Kabilika said the government should balance the debt repayment and management to effectively deal with the debt that was taking a toll on the country’s resources.
Mr. Kabilika said in an interview that the government should ensure that they are not swayed by creditors that might consider cancelling or rescheduling the debt at the expense of other lenders waiting to be paid.
He said balancing the debt repayment and management is important because the country owes creditors from different parts of the world that includes China.
“The government should pay attention to the debt, it should also not get carried away by other funders that might want to cancel or reschedule and forget other debtors who might be crushing on us.
“You know we owe people from the Western world and the East, China and all these others, so a balance on how to pay and how to manage the debt is needed because we cannot have so much debt that is crushing all our resources,” he said.
And Mr. Kabilika has disclosed that Caritas Zambia in partnership with other local Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and outside have formed a debt alliance to look into how the country could get out of the crippling debt.
He said as CSOs, they are engaging with their colleagues outside the country to lobby lenders to be lenient on poor countries like Zambia whose economy has adversely been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“As a civil society organisation we are interested in the debt situation and have formed a debt alliance looking at how this country can move out of this crushing debt. This is the big issue for us,” Mr. Kabilika said.