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resources …after China debt relief ‘CHANNEL 6 Friday 30, October, 2020 By BUUMBA CHIMBULU ZAMBIA should ensure that the debt relief from some Chinese creditors is used to rebuild domestic resources. COVID-19 FUNDS ZAMBIA IN TRADE SURPLUS 6 Friday 24 July, 2020 The relief has given space to Government channelled resources towards economic areas which would generate revenue, says Zambia Private Sector Development Association (PSDA) Chairperson, Yusuf Dodia. Mr Dodia in an interview stressed that it was encouraging that some of Zambia’s Chinese creditors had started THROUGH DBZ‘ responding positively to the request for debt relief.By BUUMBA CHIMBULU By BUUMBA CHIMBULU ZAMBIA has continued to record a trade surplus during the Covid-19 period despite food consumer prices increasing to 16 percent this month from 15.7 percent recorded in August 2020. Total trade in September 2020 increased by 16.0 percent to over K26.24 billion from K22.61 billion in August 2020, says Mulenga Musepa, the Interim Statistician General at the Zambia Statistics Agency (ZAMSTATS). Mr Musepa said the total trade for the period from January 2020 to September 2020 increased by 22.5 percent to K165.87 billion from K135.35 billion. He said this yesterday when announcing the monthly bulletin for the month of September on the Copperbelt. “A Trade Surplus of K7.3 billion was recorded in September 2020 indicating a 32.9 percent increase from an August 2020 surplus of K5.31 billion, driven by an increase in exports,” Mr Musepa said. Mr Musepa explained that exports increased by 19.2 percent to K16.34 billion in September 2020 from K13.96 billion in AuImports, he said, increased by 10.8 percent to K9.58 billion in September 2020 from K8.65 billion in August 2020. “Exports mainly increased due to a 21.9 percent rise in Intermediate goods exports earnings to K14.23 billion in September 2020 from K11.68 billion in August 2020,” Mr Musepa said. Meanwhile, Mr Musepa announced that the annual inflaincreased to 16.0 percent from 15.7 percent recorded in September 2020 Zambia’s July Inflation reduced to 15.8 percent from 15.9 percent in June. It further reduced to 15.5 percent in August before quickening for the first time in four months in September to 15.7 percent. Mr Musepa said the increase for this month was attributed to price increases in food items. “The year- to- date inflation was recorded at 13.1 percent in October 2020 higher than that of the corresponding period in 2019 of 8.9 percent. “This means that, the average prices of goods and services increased at a higher rate in 2020 compared to the same period in THE China Development Bank (CDB) has deferred Zambia’s interest payment which was due on 25th October this year to 25th April 2021. The deferred interest payment would now be payable on 25th April 2021 and the deferred principal rescheduled over the life of the facility. In response, Mr Dodia said: “Government needs to look at innovative ways of how they can stimulate the growth of the Zambian companies from Small and Medium Enterprises into large corporate so that they can take up the space of paying taxes to Government. “This means generally that we need to lower the cost of doing business in Zambia, we are going through a very difficult time as a nation and these added costs are making it impossible for many businesses to survive,” he added. Government external debt service on Chinese loans amounts to approximately US$426.3 million in 2020 and US$428 million in 2021. Main Chinese Creditors include the Export Import Bank of China, CDB, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and a few other commercial entities including the Bank of China. Mr Dodia said Government had been clear that it would engage as many as Zambia’s creditors as possible to reschedule interest payments on loans. He said this was meant to allow the Zambian economy to recover and be able to become stronger and generate resources to keep the economy on the move. “Off course the bilateral development partners such as China have responded to the Ministers request as seen by the positive response by agreeing to this monetarism. “It is very clear that with the bilateral debts, we may be able to come up with this kind of arrangements. The relief that we are getting from China ought to be channelled into By BUUMBA CHIMBULU THE Bank of Zambia (BoZ) has so far approved K4 billion from the stimulus package which has been put in place to provide liquidity in the financial markets during the Covid-19 period. In April this year, the central bank staked a K10 billion stimulus package to assist with liquidity in businesses during the Covid-19 period. Out of the approved amount, K1bn has been disbursed to Atlas Mara Zambia, Indo Zambia Bank and four non-bank Institutions. BoZ Deputy Governor for Operations, Francis Chipimo, indicated that K4bn was approved but only K1bn had been drawn. He said applications worth K4.8 billion from both banks and non-bank institutions had been received by the Central Bank. Dr Chipimo was speaking yesterday during a BoZ radio show Programme. "For those we have approved K4bn but now about K1bn has been drawn down. We are working with FSPs to make sure a faster draw down, the remaining K3 billion of the K4bn approved. We want this support to get to the clients," he said. Dr Chipimo said 16 commercial banks had applied for the package out of which seven had been approved. He said the central bank had approved applications for seven non-bank institutions. Dr Chipimo said the cantral bank was encouraging the banks to take up the facility and help their clients. "We made adjustments to conditions where banks showed concerns so that they can draw the funding as quickly as possible. " They key issues we have made to FSPs is that Covid-19 is a significant challenge on the health of an economic front , if we do not think medium to long term we will not come out of it as strong as we can," he said. Dr Chipimo stressed the need to support businesses during the Covid-19 period to ensure that they were able to recover more strongly going forward. "So how we manage the crisis and support will say a lot about how strongly the economy will recover afterwards and in that sense, everybody has a role to play," he said. BOZ APPROVES K4BN PACKAGE GOVERNMENT should channel the remaining money raised from the K8 billion Covid-19 fund strictly to the private sector through the Development Bank of Zambia (DBZ). The Bank of Zambia has so far raised K6.8 billion, leaving a K1.2 billion balance to raise the full K8 billion stimulus. This move will help to revive the private sector which has also been hit by the Covid-19, says Zambia Association of Manufacturers (ZAM) Chief Executive Officer, Florence Muleya. Ms Muleya regretted that the Ministry of Finance had not set aside funds under the K8 billion specifically for the private sector. The State intends to dismantle arrears to 1,500 retirees to the tune of K500 million, while also releasing K170 million to banks for the payment gust 2020. tion rate as for October 2020 had in the annual rate of inflation 2019,” he said. rebuilding our domestic economy,” he said.

CURRENTLY, across the twenty plus commercial banks in Zambia, all those employed as Chief Risk Officers are men and there’s never been any woman employed in that capacity before since the introduction of that position. The same can be said at Bank of Zambia who happen to be the regulators in the industry.

But Zambia is no exception, just over a decade ago, risk management had almost zero women visibility in the developed world. Starting off as a “young” risk professional then at one of the leading global investment banks in London, I found the profession to be daunting and intimidating. Back then, risk management was focused more on tasks such as statistical modelling to calculating market and other financial risks – skills often seen as “male” to the chagrin of many women.

However, now there is greater focus on enterprise risk management, which is holistic in nature and ranges from conduct and culture to ensuring that systems are resilient to pandemics, tech outages and cyber terrorism. This development is not the only evolution risk management has seen in the past decade, it is more strategic in nature and risk practioners are now seen as critical and important strategic partners to the business.

By FRANCIS ZIBA

Risk Management has moved to top of the house – women need to move with It THE Coronavirus pandemic has created unprecedented uncertainty around human health, the availability of resources, the ongoing demand for prodceleration the Institute of Risk Management Zambia (IRMZA) has been monitoring several metrics that include companies shifting approximately 40-60 percent of their an increase with over 6 billion meeting minutes on WebEx hosting in excess of 4 million meeting a day globally while record numbers of downloads have also been noted selves scrambling to strengthen their online presence. Unfortunately, the only thing their IT departments needed at the time to enable remote access, was infrastructure. And this is what makes risk ucts and services and the li- and expectations in today’s workforce to remote and vir- deed moved to the top of for Enterprise mobile apps for women to consider risk as However, this in most cases management, arguably the quidity of businesses. financial markets, risk leadtual workplace. While some the house. The practice has such as Zoom Cloud Meeting a career choice in light of these has not been comprehensive most important functions for But what effect has this had ers need to be more proactive especially in the financial evolved to find a balance beand Google Hangouts which new and emerging opportunienough to accommodate the all institutions today. on the broader risk profile, than ever before. Seeking to services industry operating tween effectively managing are up 90 percent from pre- ties. level of access now needed to Risk management profesthe financial tolerance to risk ‘know what we don’t know’, at high levels of 60-80 percent risks while identifying and Covid-19 levels according to There is a unique opportuwhat has effectively become a sionals have an unenviable and the likelihood or impact and striving to bring insight virtual workforce. leveraging the opportunities GSMA statistics. nity available to institutions remote workforce. And while task of helping their instituof key risks materializing. and wise counsel to business According to sources at arising to maximize compet-All these increases in veloc- today to address the talent in the rush, many overlooked tions adapt to the complexiThis article examines one key partners well ahead of the itive advantage. Leaders are ity have led to major increas- gap in risk management, and one vital factor: ramping ty and diversity that defines business context in the world today. Risk managers are now more identified as having the ability to foresee emerging risks, investigate what lies behind it, actively listen, have a never-ending sense of curiosity, and strive to separate fact from fiction. In sum, governments and businesses are looking for “objective knowledge seekers” with strong leadership skills to take on key risk roles. In response to the fast-changing conditions risk which has unquestionably accelerated as a result of Covid-19: Cyber Risk – remote working, spike in cyber attacks and the greater dependency on technology have all changed the cyber risk profile for most businesses in Zambia and world over. Covid-19 has created new and complex commercial logistical challenges of managing cyber risk for businessese. Many businesses have failed to accelerate the pace of digital transformation across curve. In parallel, skillsets are evolving to be more cross disciplinary. A lot of risky employee behaviors such as accessing social media platforms while using company network computers or unnecessary issuing of sensitive personal or company data tend to lead to most of these vulnerabilities which hackers exploit. RISKY Risk management has indeed moved to the top of the house. The practice has evolved to find a balance between effectively managing risks while identifying and leveraging the opportunities arising to maximize competitive advantage. looking through the risk lens and harnessing risk management thinking in the boardroom and on the executive team. The reality though is that we have a talent gap in risk. Despite the evolving nature of the discipline and the rising profile of risk management, there is still increased demand for the technical expertise that risk teams are expected to engage across a broad range of issues. This makes it difficult for established industries to be able to create new career es in Cyber security risks as hackers or criminals have intensified their level of thrash as they try to exploit and take advantage of the current Covid-19 situation. With most organizations displacing their workforce from offices, this has led to an abundance of more avenues and opportunities for hackers and attackers to exploit and gain access to networks and sensitive information. Hackers have become incredibly opportunistic and unfortunately, they at the same time address the gender gap in senior leadership roles. Women are uniquely positioned to add value in risk management and grow the pool of talented leaders who are already prospering in risk management. It is encouraging to see the next cohort of women leaders who are coming through and taking a keen interest in risk management. These women will form the basis of the next generation of leaders and institutions would benefit by being more strategic about developing women up their cyber security. Not enough time and expertise was given to validate whether the security architecture was sufficiently resilient. Most businesses did what they had to, to remain connected and in doing so, opened access to unprecedented exposure of risks in an unsecure manner. If the virtual world was not a scary place to be pre Covid-19, it certainly is now because cyber-attacks are on the increase and are originating from anywhere and at brought about by Covid-19 their value chains and supply Risk management has in- paths but it would be strategic have seized on the coronavi- for leadership in risk manageany time. Faced with such a management systems and to ZICTA, internet utilization is rus outbreak to fundamen- daunting situation, what can

ment.

One of the barriers to getting women into risk and leadership roles is the demanding nature of these jobs and scarcity of role models but the banking industry is blessed with three top and exemplary executives: Mizinga Melu at Absa, Mukwandi Chibesakunda at Zanaco and Lowani Chibesakunda at Citi Bank. The success of these women and many more in other industries such as Barabina Mporokoso who is leading the implementation of risk management in the public sector, can only inspire and motivate more womCovid-19 has created new and complex commercial logistical en to challenge the status quo. challenges of managing cyber risk for businessese. Many of the exceptionally successful women who have paigns exist to manage these made it to the top identify risks? And what is the state their willingness to take on of our control environment difficult assignments in their across new technologies and institutions by challenging the vendors? These are some of status quo and taking on a role the questions, businesses will where success is not a given have to address in order to - often roles their male coun-create a secure remote-conterparts don’t need to take on trol environment for its emto “prove themselves”. These ployees. are the very traits needed in A lot of risky employee berisk management today – and haviors such as accessing might just create that catalyst we have been seeking which will propel more women into the CEO seat. The author is a former investment banker with Lehman Brothers and the current Executive Director at the Institute of social media platforms while using company network computers or unnecessary issuing of sensitive personal or company data tend to lead to most of these vulnerabilities which hackers exploit. BusiRisk Management Zambia. For nesses need to continually comments and queries, email monitor their internal neton: fziba@irmza.org work security systems and architecture, including network