ZAMBIA has a gigantic external debt of 27 billion US dollars (US$), according to the World Bank.
In the recently released International Debt Statistics report, the World Bank reveals Zambia's actual External Debt as US$27bn as of 2019. Combined with local debt and arrears, this would total $33bn.
Shockingly, Zambia's debt trap and debt related ratios are now significantly worse than neighbouring Zimbabwe, a bad indicator for what lies ahead for the Zambian economy.
What does this mean?
Experts say, based on the current debt position, even assuming a 5% growth rate, no further borrowing, and setting aside 20% of domestic revenues aside each year, it would take Zambia almost 50 years to settle all this debt.
See the full report here:
https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/34588
On October 12th, we published a story examining how part of the money from the debt has been used/misused:
