Nigeria, other African countries call for debt relief from World Bank, IMF

African Ministers of Finance are seeking debt relief from international lenders to buffer the effects of COVID-19 on national economies within the continent.

According to them, the debt relief should be approached with the help of bilateral and multilateral financial institutions like the World Bank, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.

The action is crucial to African countries’ fiscal leverage needed to tackle the coronavirus outbreak.

Hosted by Vera Songwe, Executive Secretary Economic Commission for Africa, and co-chaired by Tito Mboweni (South Africa’s Finance Minister) and Ken Ofori-Atta (Ghana’s Minister of Finance), a virtual conference, held on Tuesday, maintained that an extended debt relief period was urgently required at this time when the world economy was right on a downtrend and recovery had been forecast to happen after about 24 to 36 months.

Read also: MTN to sell 15% of its stake in Nigeria

“They called for a special purpose vehicle to be created to deal with all sovereign debt obligations. Substantial drops in revenue from commodity price drops coupled with increasing costs of imports is putting pressures on both inflation and the exchange rate,” a statement from the Economic Commission for Africa says.

It appealed to development partners to grant debt relief and suspension of interest payment obligation for two to three years for African countries.

The ministers stressed the significance of raising $100 billion immediate emergency financing for COVID-19 in Africa.

They applauded the contribution of the private sector to job creation, enjoining development finance institutions to back it in these hard times.

The document noted that the ministers advocated protection and support for the African logistics, airline and tourism industries in the light of the huge losses recorded by the hospitality and airline sectors following the outbreak of the pandemic.

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now