- August 3, 2021
- Posted by: admin
- Categories: Current News, debt management
At the request of the Ministry of Finance in Zambia, MEFMI and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) undertook a mission to Zambia from 5 to 9 July 2021. The objective of the mission was to update the government’s domestic debt securities database and to train officials on how to register these instruments in the Debt Management and Financial Analysis System (DMFAS). This was a follow-up to the mission that was conducted in February 2020, whose main output was a consolidated central government debt database, composed of both local currency government securities, and external debt as at 31 December 2019.
The follow-up mission was necessitated by the need to build the capacity of the Investments and Debt Management (IDM) department in the Ministry of Finance, which has been affected by staff movements. As a result, the department’s human capacity continues to lag behind the growing demands of an increasingly complex public debt portfolio. The capacity challenges were compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic, which affected access to the DMFAS.
A total of 14 officials, drawn from the Ministry of Finance’s IDM and Accounting departments participated in this exercise. Through this training, the officials were tasked to record all outstanding government of Zambia domestic debt securities in the DMFAS, and the database will be validated with MEFMI’s assistance in August 2021. By the end of this process, DMFAS will become the central hub for accessing public debt information.
The mission, which was facilitated by two (2) resource persons, Messrs. Tiviniton Makuve (MEFMI) and Gabor Piski (UNCTAD), was conducted with financial support from the Financial Sector Deepening Africa under a grant agreement that was signed with MEFMI in March 2021. The grant aims at supporting debt management activities and processes in eligible MEMFI member countries, to foster recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and to build resilience and sustainability.
Prepared by Tiviniton Makuve
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