Disheartening how Africa is suffering with suffocating debts - Ken Ofori-Atta

Finance minister Ken Ofori-Atta has lamented the situation where about two-thirds of economies on the continent are suffering from interest payments that exceed their budgetary allocations for health and education.

He is quoted by the New York Times as having expressed "disappointment that advanced economies had been slow to act."

The minister as at last week was leading a government delegation to the Spring Meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington DC.

“Honestly, it is disheartening to watch Africa struggle in this way, especially considering the potential loss of productivity over the next decade should African economies buckle under the weight of suffocating debts,” Ofori-Atta said at an Atlantic Council event on April 14, 2023.

Ghana's economy like that of most across Africa have been impacted by the aftermath of the COVID pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war.

The Ghana government has serially blamed both external factors for the financial headwinds back home.

Government approached the IMF last year for a programme but it has yet to secure Board approval for the US$3 billion facility with a March deadline failing to hold.

The failure is premised on inability to secure assurances of debt restructuring from major external creditors among them, the Chinese government.

The NYT story said of Ghana's peculiar situation: Ghana appealed to the G20 nations this year for debt relief through a fledgling program known as the Common Framework after securing preliminary approval for a $3 billion loan from the IMF.

That money is contingent on Ghana’s receiving assurances that it can restructure the approximately $30 billion that it owes to foreign lenders. Officials from Ghana have been meeting with their Chinese counterparts about restructuring the $2 billion that it owes China.

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