By Ahmed Rahma
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr Femi Gbajabiamila, has submitted that the economic recovery drive of Africa may practically be useless if international development partners do not consider cancellation of debt for the continent.
Coronavirus dealt with Africa and the rest of the world in 2020 and Nigeria, like other nations, slipped into economic crisis as a result of the lockdown imposed in the country to control the spread of the virus.
Recently, a roundtable on Debt Cancellation Initiative (DCCI) under the umbrella of the Conference of Speakers and Heads of African Parliaments (CoSAP) with international development partners was held.
During the meeting, Mr Gbajabiamila sought the views of the World Bank Country Director, Shubham Chaudhuri, on debt cancellation considering the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on African economies.
“We can all sit here and talk about revamping the economy, develop the infrastructure in terms of health, education and all of those things, which are great and wonderful.
“But we may be doing it and it would be, hopefully, not be an exercise in futility because these things require money and if all your money is going toward servicing debt, then how are we serious about this agenda?
“So, one of the main issues we are dealing with in that association is debt forgiveness in the form of debt cancellation.
“In other words, pressing the reset button; we made commitments, we’ve done a lot, so, we are here to take responsibility in terms of transparency and accountability.
“We even signed an accountability pledge in ensuring all freed up resources will be spent wholly on addressing the social and economic pains our people bear.
“We consider this debt forgiveness if we do get it, as money in hand and we have to channel these towards the development of the continent.
“So, my question is when I said I want to tap your brains, how feasible is this, what role can you play in terms of helping us advocate for debt forgiveness? Not debt relief because debt relief, as far as I’m concerned, is just basically kicking the can further down the road; you are still going to go and pick it up later,” the Speaker said.
Responding, Mr Chaudhuri said, “What has happened over the last 20 years is that the debt levels have built up.
“For Nigeria, as you may have known over the issue of financing, does not have debt problem but for other sub-Saharan African countries, the debt level has actually gone up again to a very high level. But this time, a lot of them are commercial debts and official bilateral debts or a kind of semi-official bilateral debt.
“So, the G-20 and the World Bank President have put up on the agenda that that also needs to be approached, especially given the global crisis.
“The problem is, there is a very different set of creditors that we are talking about and it will take a lot more work. That’s one thing that has changed.”
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