Zambia blames creditors after Africa’s first pandemic-era default

Zambia’s finance minister claimed creditors were at the very least partly to blame for the country defaulting on just one of its eurobonds final week, even though a team of bondholders claimed the missed payment risked placing a additional adversarial backdrop for personal debt negotiations.

The southern African nation became the continent’s very first pandemic-period sovereign default, right after holders of the personal debt refused to grant it a six-thirty day period fascination payment freeze on Friday.

The bondholders demanded additional info on Zambia’s debts to Chinese loan companies, but would not signal the important confidentiality agreements, Bwalya Ng’andu claimed.

Zambia missed a $42.5m (£32.3m) fascination payment on $1bn well worth of eurobonds maturing in 2024. The default was unavoidable mainly because the country, which had obtained some personal debt relief from the China Improvement Bank, had to treat all creditors equally and had currently created up arrears on other financial loans, Mr Ng’andu claimed.

The country’s $1bn in eurobonds, because of 2024, fell one.8pc to 44 cents on the dollar in London. The non-payment has induced cross-default provisions in all the fantastic dollar bonds.

The bondholders committee, whose 15 customers characterize in aggregate additional than 40pc of Zambia’s $3bn in fantastic Eurobonds, claimed on Monday that buyers had been not able to consent to a personal debt standstill mainly because they by no means obtained info they wanted for an knowledgeable decision.

That contains details on Zambia’s “policy trajectory” and fiscal framework, and transparency on how the govt intends to offer with other creditors.

There had been no direct conversations concerning bondholders and the authorities to date, the committee claimed.