Africa Business Radio

A new estimate for the amount of money that Zambia owes Chinese lenders is nearly double what the Zambian government had previously admitted.The credit rating firm S&P Global says Zambia spends at least 30% of its income on interest payments, President, Hakainde Hichilema, says the debt situation had not been fully disclosed by the former government.A new paper from the China Africa Research Initiative, based at Johns Hopkins University in the US, estimates that the sum now amounts to $6.6bn.Zambia's finance ministry says these figures were broadly consistent with official government reporting.