Nigeria, others plead with G20 for debt service extension

Nigeria and other African countries have written a letter to the Group of 20 (G20) countries to extend their debt servicing timeline.

They took the step to ensure that debt servicing obligations do not cripple their economies.

The plea is contained in a letter by the Ministers of Finance of Ghana, Senegal and Egypt, on behalf of African Ministers of Finance and Central Bank Governors, and copied to the Chairperson of G20 Chairperson, African Union (AU) Managing Director, International Monetary Fund (IMF) President, The World Bank.

In the letter, the African Ministers of Finance and Central Bank governors said: “We ask for immediate liquidity support akin to the global response during the COVID-19 pandemic to help support our economies.

“The end of the G20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) in December 2021 meant that countries are due to resume payments on their debt obligations, despite a deteriorating global context, particularly for middle and low-income economies on the African continent.

“Given the new crisis, we ask that the G20 members extend the DSSI for two more years and reschedule the deferred interest payments for over five years.”

The DSSI, they said, “created over $12.9 billion of additional fiscal space for countries in need, and a deferment of this would allow countries space to manage the new emerging crisis while planning for a more orderly debt service obligation process”.

The affected countries also urged the IMF to offer “debt service relief to the poorest countries exposed to the shocks, as done before at the onset of the pandemic, including via the Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust (CCRT)”. (Nation )

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