There is growing fury over plans to privatise state-owned companies in Zambia.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has told Zambia it will delay debt relief of about $1bn (�633m) if the country fails to privatise its state-owned commercial bank.

But opposition leader Michael Sata has been quoted in the national press as saying that all Zambians will have to be killed before such a sale goes ahead.

Trade unions in Zambia have already joined forces to demonstrate against the sale, fearing that it would mean hefty job losses.

And Mr Sata urged further action, accusing the country's finance minister of being a capitalist agent who did not care about the lives of ordinary Zambians.

Resolution?

Earlier this week, Mark Ellyne, the IMF representative in Zambia, said that if the government did not sell the Zambia National Commercial Bank, it would not receive the debt relief.

The Zambian deputy finance minister, Patrick Kalifungwa told the BBC that the announcement was "terrible" for Zambia.

But he said he would be meeting IMF officials for urgent talks on the issue to try to resolve the dispute.

Preserving branch banking as a separate subsidised network is one possibility on the table.

Zambia has external debts of more than $6.5bn but is hoping to win relief under the IMF's initiative to cancel debts to the world's poorest countries.

But in order to win debt relief under the so-called Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative, Zambia must first satisfy a number of IMF requirements.