Friday, November 22, 2024

Zambia Betrayed!

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The IMF MD, Kristalina Georgieva has turned Zambia into a bad case study of “how not to negotiate deals with creditors”. She has advised Ghanaian President to keep national interests in mind when negotiating deals with creditors and avoid being arm-twisted like what was done to Zambia!

Is this is not betrayal? The IMF has been touting Zambia as a good example of frugal managers of national debt and debt restructuring icons. But the IMF MD statement in Ghana means only three things:

(1) Zambian negotiators did not take into account national interest when dealing with bondholders, hence the bad results of those negotiations.
(2) Zambia is incapable of resisting arm-twisting by international creditors.
(3) Zambia has reached bad agreement with bondholders, and she blames the country for such bad deals (the type that Ghana must avoid at all costs)

But how can this be when we have hired best international transaction advisors to lead our negotiations with creditors (including private bondholders and other commercial lenders)? So our money has been wasted?

Lesson to Zambian leaders.

Learn to listen to your nationals on matters of national importance. You lose nothing and you have everything to gain. The IMF MD knew all along that our debt-restructuring efforts lacked the most important ingredient- defense of our national interest. We have just been obsessed with reaching agreement without regard to consequences, simply to show that we are better than those who contracted the debt in the first place!

My advice- reverse what is going on in the mining industry before it is too late. Everything being done in that sector is devoid of defense of national interest. The Mopani, KCM and Kansanshi mine deals are all devoid of care for the future of this nation, care for the needs of our future generations. We don’t need the IMF and the World Bank to use us again as a case study of bad investment negotiators.

All these deals being made in the mining sector are a betrayal of our national interest and they are simply setting up foundations for their future reversal. Even those investors agreeing to enter into such deals must know that the future of such investment is impaired. They will last only as long as the UPND Government lasts.

Patriotic Front
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26 COMMENTS

  1. At last the PF have come to realise their deals on loans etc were flawed
    Now some may realise the problems we are now facing correcting these mistakes

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    • I think this report is referring to UPND deals/negotiations not PF! I may be wrong though but that is what I read here.

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    • UPND has no deals. They are trying to sort out the crooked deals of PF. No one will lend Zambia money. We are not credit worthy. PF borrowed US $33 billion and stole it. They know that Zambia does not have the capacity to pay that money back ever. This is the hook they have not even in our mouth but deep in small intestines. Now, all they are doing is to collect.

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  2. HH already said he is a Salesman for Zambia. What salesmen do is move around with samples of products meeting potential buyers. When HH is global trotting, he is showing off Zambia’s wealth to foreigners and asking them to come and buy. His go is to make a sale regardless of profit or future consequences for Zambia. He still does not reglet what he did during privatization and he is doing it with impunity now. His praise singers already cerebrated his debt restructuring while IMF is showing the world an example of a f0olish President.

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    • Where are the PF fuel tankers? Why fuel expensive when those tankers can cross broader daily into Angola and get cheap petrol?
      But ba Lubinda litole, how can Miles take away all that?

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  3. This is nonsensical, someone got paid to do a deal with IMF. LT can go back and review what we said about these IMF and Co right at the start of all this. I have always been vocal about these organisations because they take advantage of the nativity of our leaders. What African leaders don’t understand is that these institutions leverage on a massive joint European technocratic base backed by their university researchers on how they can exploit Africa. If these people have been bad to us for over 500 years, what makes us think they will change now? Just think about that for a minute. We keep doing the same things but expecting different results. All they need is r3gime change to do what they like.

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    • you are right,
      first of all the world bank and IMF dont want to see sub Sahara countries to thrive.
      They want to keep controlling us by using a debt trap.
      In short they dont want us to be debt free

    • @rodger banda – Imagine their line of business is to sell debt to countries and we are sitting here thinking these people will help us. This is like the bank trying to tell you not to use money when their line of business is money. Our leaders unfortunately just follow, they don’t see the bigger picture.

    • FutureZed

      With that line of thinking that whites are out to get us……….

      The blacks in the USA have no chance of a decent life……….

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    • Very Simplistic “analysis” Mr FutureZed – our people are too LAZY to think! From the original article, where the PF selectively quoted from, IMF MD Kristalina did NOT condemn Zambia’s deal with IMF, but rather she is referred to Zed deal with non multilateral / bilateral (private creditors if you will). That is what she condemned, which was, correctly put, weak. And this is due in part, to Zambia’s current weak bargaining power.
      Zambia’s deal with IMF is among the best.
      Lets be object when commenting 🙂

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  4. The chief sales man HH auctioning Zambia…and now his trusted Chola boy Kakubo will be back in his Cabinet…watch the Foreign trips resume…..Foreign Affairs Ministry is the most powerful Ministry

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    • Stop lying Ano-minus , it is the PF that got us into this bad predicament and yet now they act hollier than thou and you swallow their trash content. Don’t you have any brains?

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  5. A cat by a different name remains a cat. IMF have told upnd not to subsidize consumption but they have played a trick for fear of people’s anger by using Zambia National Service for relatively cheaper mealie meal. But it still remains subsidizing.

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  6. LT yet another load of nonsense and propaganda published as a headline. A figment of imagination of someone in PF.
    The worst thing about the article is, it bears no semblance to reality.
    I am of the opinion that your employees are NOT journalists but copy / cut and paste merchants.

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    • #Foreigner. Nosense is to just rubbish what has been written with no words to counter what you call nonsense. Tell us your point to defend your small god

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  7. Its refreshing to hear PF caused the mess Zambia has found itself. Those who negotiated with Bondholders (PF regime) had indeed no interest of the nation – hence bad results of those negotiations. They, PF can not correct what they messed, it needed some one Zambians can have confidence with and the multilateral agreements entered into by PF regime.

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  8. RUBBISH … HOW AND WHY SHOULD THE GOVT LISTEN TO THESE LOSERS, WHO HIRED SOMEOONE TO TELL THEM HOW MUCH THEY OWE.

  9. ……..

    Only a fooool would belive what the habitual lies from PF , after all…………

    They created this mess we are in………

  10. PF you failed this country.
    Now I am telling you that this term will be called DEBT re-Structuring. So there President HH First term will be in 2026 there after second term.

  11. Silence means consent. The Social media has anonymously amended; If a ruling Party defaults paying a Loan it contracted. The defaulting political Party will not field a Presidential candidate in the General Election following the default.
    Now, if it is seen that the defaulting Party has majority in Parliament, for the seek of running the country, three quarters of the their vote will be added to progress to avoid crushing Parliament.

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