By BUUMBA CHIMBULU
A clear roadmap should have been outlined in the 2022 National Budget by Government on how it will offset its current debt, Financial Analyst, Trevor Hambayi, has said.
Zambia’s external debt currently stands at US$14.67 billion.
Mr Hambayi said he was concerned about the country’s debt position because Government should not have been looking at an expansionary budget as it had no resources to implement it.
“What this has shown is that we are asking to borrow an additional US$4 billion to finance this budget but we still have not been provided adequate modalities that speaks to us on how to repay the debt that we have at the moment,” he said
Government cannot continue to borrow resources for the current expenditure without providing adequate modalities on how it would deal with its debt.
Mr Hambayi said this at the Budget Listening-In and Analysis consultation meeting organised by Consumer Unity and Trust Society (CUTS) in Chisamba recently.
He indicated that the proposed increase in the expenditure presents new challenges in terms of implementation.
Mr Hambayi noted that the biggest obstacle the country was facing was around implementation over the budget programmes, stating that this would give rise to new challenges.
