Ann Pettifor, a British Economist, has called for rebalancing of the international financial system, to ensure equity and fairness between creditors and debtors.

She said: “For example, we have bankruptcy in law. If the warehouse burnt down in a business, then you cannot expect them to pay their debt but we don’t have a similar system in international finance. So, we need to rebalance the international financial system so that it is much more balanced between creditors and debtors. We need to do that in the economy and at our home.”

Pettifor who is also a co-founder of Jubilee 2000 Debt Cancellation Campaign, made the call in an interview with the media on the sideline of the Ghana International Trade and Finance Conference (GITFiC) 9th meeting on the 2nd Global Debt Initiative.

The meeting was on the theme, “Spurring GITFiC Global Debt Initiative: Consolidating Member States gains for Synergistic Impacts.”

She said the way the international financial system worked, it favoured creditors more than debtors, adding that creditors were so dominant and they could easily extract value and resources from debtors.

She urged African governments to be determined to feel-free to change their dependence on foreign creditors and finance and use their internal resources to build their economies.

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She added, “I am saying that we need to change the way we think and move from a situation where we depend on foreign creditors and foreign finance to a situation in which we use our own resources to build our economy at home.”

“So, in other words the government of Ghana should feel-free to determine its own policy to use more of its internal income in investing in health, education and welfare rather than considering the interest of foreign creditors by using all its tax revenue to settle its debt obligations,” she said.

Pettifor stated that the biggest crises that Africa was facing presently, was youth unemployment and although the youth were the future potential, “we always say there is no money, but it is amazing how much money there is in the international system.”

“Yet this money is being used for lending, not for investing in the youth and governments are happy borrowing this international money and having to pay back twice as much, and there is no money for investment in youth unemployment,” she added.

She said the Ghanaian government should channel some of its internal income with the support of the central bank and savings from the people, into growing the capacity of young people so that they could be equipped to meet the challenges of the future.

She commended the Ghana government, especially the Minister of Finance for producing an excellent report on the debt restructuring efforts and urged other countries to emulate Ghana.

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