By Joy Baba-Yesufu
The African Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ) has raised concern over the steady rise of debt crisis in eleven countries of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
ANEEJ also said a new report has disclosed that Nigeria and ten other countries are currently in debt distress based on debt sustainability.
Executive Director of ANEEJ, Rev. David Ugolor stated this on Monday in Abuja at a Hybrid Conference on Debt and Management with the theme “Making Special Drawing Rights work for the people”.
He said the other ten countries include; Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Niger, Senegal and Togo.
Ugolor further said statistics from Debt Management Office shows that Nigeria’s public debt stood at N87,379,402.75 trillion as at 30th June, 2023 and in the same vein, Ghana’s public debt stock rose to 569.3 billion cedis ($49.7billion) at the end of April 2023 according to figures obtained from the Bank of Ghana.
He said this is even more worrisome when viewed against the back drop that Nigeria remains the World poverty capital as designated by World Poverty Clock report of 2023 adding that this will drive more Nigerians and indeed West Africa into extreme and multidimensional poverty if urgent and drastic steps are not taken by our governments and the international community.
According to Ugolor “ high fiscal deficits in many African countries have made it difficult to build resilience and tackle multiple shocks (i.e COVID-19 pandemic, natural disaster and insecurity occasioned by terrorism and banditry).
“As at last year, eight African countries including Ghana were in debt distress and thirteen at high risk of debt distress”
He added that this conference is in furtherance of of implementation of our “Tracking Special Drawing Rights Funds and Raising Citizen’s Voices to end Debt Crisis in West Africa” project.
Also speaking at the conference, representative of Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) Ghana, Ms Gifty Asantewaa Nkrumah said the conference is about shaping the future of our nations and well being of her citizens through collaborative efforts of the entire Africa.
She further said the general gap between government debt, and debt servicing commitment has widened reflecting the growing debt accumulation for the capacity of sustainable debt servicing.
