MEFMI Trains Bank of Zambia Officials on Use of DMFAS

Comprehensive, reliable and up-to-date external private sector debt statistics are a critical input for assessing a country’s external debt sustainability. Including private sector external debt in conducting a debt sustainability analysis (DSA), enables countries to analyse the vulnerabilities that could arise from private sector borrowing. In recognition of this and to enhance capacity for recording, disclosure and dissemination of private external debt information, the Bank of Zambia requested MEFMI to provide training to its officials on the use of the Debt Management and Financial Analysis System (DMFAS).

A MEFMI Mission composed of four consultants visited the Bank of Zambia, from 4 to 8 November 2019 to conduct the assignment. The Mission team comprised Ms. Josephine Tito of MEFMI Secretariat; Ms. Susan Nattembo, a MEFMI Graduate Fellow from the Bank of Uganda; and Messrs Tongai Tarubona and Tawanda Madzima of Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank and Ministry of Finance, respectively.

The workshop was delivered through lectures and practical exercises on the use of DFMAS and IT support for the system. Topics covered included: interpretation of loan agreements; recording details of creditors and debtors; recording interest and exchange rates and other debt transactions. In addition, the IT related component of the training covered installation and configuration of DMFAS 6 and its architecture, installation and preparation of user workstations and how to support users, preparation of the test environment for the BoZ, DMFAS troubleshooting, backup and recovery and user support, security training as well as DMFAS control panel parameters and utilities training.

The main output of the workshop is that it equipped participants with knowledge and skills required to effectively use DMFAS for recording, monitoring and reporting external private sector debt data. In addition, localised DFMAS procedures manuals for users and IT support were produced, which will guide users and IT administrators of the DMFAS. This is expected to enhance the use of the system and for production of accurate debt statistics, which is important for policy formulation while also keeping stakeholders abreast of the debt transactions.