Zambian president Edgar Lungu has pledged to remove or reduce energy and agricultural subsidies as part of a loan deal with the International Monetary Fund that could top $1.2 billion, his spokesman said.
“Straight away when the IMF program begins, subsidies will significantly go down in the energy sector,” Amos Chanda said in an interview on recently. “The president has promised to move rapidly to either completely do away with subsidies or progressively reduce them.”
The re-elected Zambian president who won by a narrow margin against a strong opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema is very keen to pursue a deal with IMF. The president will need to cut a budget deficit that widened to almost 10 percent of GDP last year, while growth slumped to 3 percent, the slowest pace since 1998. Fuel and power subsidies alone could cost government $660 million this year alone, according to the Washington-based lender.
The Finance Ministry announced in April it would seek an aid program from the IMF that it hoped to have finalized by the end of the year. The fund may provide a loan of $1.2 billion dollars or more, Chanda said, citing preliminary talks that were put on hold until after the elections.
Zambia’s kwacha has weakened 25 percent against the dollar over the past 12 months, the fourth-worst performance in Africa, pushing the inflation rate to more than 20 percent. Yields on Zambia’s $1 billion of bonds due April 2024 dropped 16 basis points by 4:35 p.m. in Lusaka to 9.41 percent, the lowest on a closing basis in a year.
Lungu’s government is satisfied with a new mining tax system that came into force earlier this year in Africa’s second-biggest copper producer and will leave it unchanged for at least three years, Chanda said.
