Zambia needs strategy to protect it from debt, says church official

Published: 2007-12-06

LUSAKA, Zambia (CNS) -- Zambia needs a comprehensive strategy to protect it from high debts and mismanagement that threaten to erode the gains of debt cancellation, said an official from the Jesuit Center for Theological Reflection in Lusaka. The Jesuit center has drawn up a comprehensive debt management bill and a stakeholder's manual for monitoring debt resources, said Muyatwa Sitali, debt and trade project coordinator for the center. If enacted, the legislation would "provide oversight authority to parliament to discuss loans, terms and conditionalities attached to all debts the government can contract," he said in a statement Nov. 29. Legislators would also "have the authority to consistently determine the annual limits for which both external and domestic loans will be borrowed," he said. The bill proposes the creation of a debt advisory committee that "will assist in determining the debt management strategy and provide guidance," Sitali said.

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