Zambia

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Return to homepage  |  Last updated: 15 April, 2020

Zambia has predominantly focused on putting up a range of measures to contain the spread of the pandemic within the Zambian economy. The Government through the Ministry of Finance has proposed a number of measures which include among others:  Set up an Epidemic Preparedness Fund under the Ministry of Health amounting to K57 million; Cabinet approved a COVID-19 Contingency and Response Plan with a budget of K659 million under the Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit; and the Government has started mobilizing funds through the budget and engagement with various local and international stakeholders.

• Government through Cabinet Office has requested non-essential workers to work from home where possible or on rotational basis.

Government through the Central Bank announced a number of measures to encourage the use of digital financial services. The measures include:

• Waived charges for person to person electronic money transfers of up to K150. These transactions are now free of charge;
• Revised upwards transactions and balance limits for individuals, small scale farmer and enterprises. The limits by agents have been revised upwards to give agents more float to deal with transactions. This is made to decongest banks;
• Removed the transaction and balance limits on agents and corporate wallets; and
• Reduced the processing fees for Real Time Gross Settlement System.

Government is expected to issue a Statutory Instrument for Classification and Provisioning of Loans Directives to encourage financial service providers to provide relief to the private sector and facilitate long term lending to productive sectors of the economy.

Main sources of information:

• Statement of the Honorable Minister of Finance dated 26 March 2020.
• Ministry of Finance website

Risk Management: Jason Kazilimani – jkazilimani@kpmg.com
Tax and Legal: Michael Phiri – mphiri@kpmg.com