GHANA’s minister of finance, Ken Ofori Ata, said that at this week’s World Bank and IMF annual meetings much more needs to be done to help economies cope with falling revenues, rising expenditures and increasing debt distress.
Ofori Ata appealed to the IMF to issue more of its special drawing rights (SDRs) to low-income African countries who have opted out of the G20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI), which offers relief on official bilateral debt service payments.
DSSI-eligible African countries like Nigeria and Kenya have opted out of the initiative to preserve access to international capital markets.
“The IMF’s lending capacity should be doubled to $2.5tn. European countries have some $260bn in special drawing rights for which they have little use and could easily lend on to African countries. The US is opposing the issuance of new SDRs altogether,” he wrote in a Financial Times editorial on Monday.
Speaking at
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