Zambia’s up to its eyeballs in debt.
Late last year, it became the first African country to default on its foreign debt since the Covid pandemic began.
“We’re on a downhill trajectory and we’ve almost hit the bottom, but there’s nothing stopping us from going further,” says Trevor Hambayi, a financial analyst in Lusaka.
And people across the country have started feeling the pinch: many complain about rising prices and their sudden inability to pay their bills.
“Because the price of cooking oil has also gone up, we’ve suspended meals that required cooking oil,” a Nakonde resident tells me.
But Zambia’s looking for a way out: it’s been talking to the International Monetary Fund, hoping to get some sort of bailout.
How did things get so bad though? And is there an easy way out of this crisis?
Source: BBC
