On March 21st, Zambia’s Anti-Corruption Commission announced that it had arrested political leader Given Lubinda. When Hakainde Hichilema, the current president of Zambia, was elected in 2021, he promised to fight the country’s pervasive corruption and recover state assets that were allegedly stolen under the previous administration. Since then, numerous previous government officials have been arrested and charged.
Throughout his campaign, President Hichilema promised that he would completely root out corruption and work towards bringing Zambia out of its debt to numerous external creditors. Hichilema has been working towards re-feeding money into the system through prosecuting leaders suspected of corruption during their time in office, as well as leaders who have cost the country heavy monetary losses. These leaders include former justice minister Given Lubinda, with a total amount of $539,000 under scrutiny.
Former foreign minister Joseph Malanji has also had his assets seized and was found to have spent more than $640,000 on a helicopter for his election campaign, embezzling around 1 million USD. Given that the average income for a civil servant in Zambia is much lower, this kind of elaborate spending reasonably raises suspicion and outrage.
“As public officers, we must account for every penny we hold. This is not about persecution but about fighting corruption,” government spokesperson Chushi Kasanda stated.
In addition to prosecuting corruption in government, Hichilema has been working with the International Monetary Fund (I.M.F.) for the past several years to fulfill his promises of improving Zambia’s debtor status. Zambia endured Africa’s first COVID-19 default in November 2020 after years of chronic overborrowing by its government, which drove the nation’s debt burden above 120% of its annual economic output. In December, the I.M.F. agreed on a $1.4 billion three-year extended credit facility to help bring Zambia closer to a plausible, laid-out debt overhaul. This has required tedious amounts of debt restructuring, meaning that creditors will either have to exchange loans for equity in a company or agree to let the debtor, Zambia, pay in a larger number of installments and lowered interest.
This progress is a good sign that Zambia’s current government is following through on Hichilema’s campaign promises. Hopefully the Hichilema administration will continue carrying on this work and will restore both integrity and economic hope to Zambia.
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