LUSAKA, Feb. 17– The Zambian government has reaffirmed its commitment to prudent borrowing to avoid plunging the country into another unsustainable debt crisis.
Minister of Finance and National Planning Situmbeko Musokotwane said the government will ensure that borrowing is undertaken in line with the annual borrowing plan and subject to parliamentary oversight.
“Zambia operates within a structured legal and institutional framework that ensures accountability, transparency, and discipline in debt management,” he said in a statement released late Monday.
Musokotwane noted that Zambia’s public debt stock stood at about 26.6 billion U.S. dollars as of September 2025, with domestic debt accounting for about 10.6 billion dollars and external debt totaling about 16 billion dollars.
He dismissed allegations of reckless borrowing, saying the government submits borrowing proposals to parliament outlining how much will be borrowed, from which sources, for what purposes, and under what financial terms.
Zambia has restructured over 90 percent of its external debt under the G20 Common Framework, Musokotwane said, referring to the Group of 20.
This, he added, ensures borrowing decisions are subjected to democratic scrutiny and national consensus before implementation, while also providing predictability to investors and reassuring citizens that public debt is being managed responsibly.
The annual borrowing plan is more than a technical document, the minister said, describing it as a governance tool that protects national interests by aligning borrowing with fiscal sustainability, development priorities, economic growth objectives, and debt repayment capacity.
Borrowing is also guided by a structured medium-term debt management strategy designed to keep debt sustainable and aligned with the country’s economic growth capacity, he added. (Namibia Daily News/Xinhua)
