Minority spokesperson on Finance, Cassiel Ato Forson
Former Deputy Finance Minister and Member of Parliament for Ajumako-Enyan-Esiam Constituency in the Central Region, Cassiel Ato Forson has disclosed he highly doubts China will write off some debts owed them by Africa.
According to him Africa’s debt portfolio to China is larger than a debt anyone owes a single country. And the Chinese believe in the principle of paying back debts.
He made this known in an interview on Happy98.9FM’s ‘Epa Hoa Daben’.
“I doubt China is in a position to forgive us our debt. China has invested heavily in the continent. Together with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), they even objected to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) cancelling our debt when Ghana was part of the HIPC,” he revealed.
The former deputy minister added that “If I’m not mistaken, combining all bilateral and Chinese debts, the Chinese debts are huge than all. Chinese debts constitute 30 % of all debts Ghana owes.”
He however encouraged African leaders to push harder to get this debt relief from China on the basis of the numerous benefits that will come along with such a relief. “Africa has a good reason to be doing this. If the debt relief is given, we won’t have to pay back any interest on the principal. That money can be used for some developmental projects on the continent. If the Chinese government considers giving us the relief, it will help Africa a lot,” he noted.
When asked by host, Afrifa Mensah if any plan or project has been outlined to parliamentarians on what the money gained from a debt relief will be used for, he answered in the negative. He said, “Nothing of that sort has been proposed to us. Maybe the government of the day is thinking about something but they’ve not said anything yet.”
African governments want $100bn in assistance, support for a moratorium on all external debt and some debt write-offs.
Ghana’s Finance Minister Ofori-Atta who chairs the Development Committee, a ministerial-level forum that advises the World Bank and the IMF on development issues has said: “African debt to China is $145bn or so, over $8bn of payments is required this year...So that needs to be looked at.”
China on Tuesday said that it recognised that developing countries faced a greater challenge amidst the COVID-19, but it did not mention any specific debt-relief measures that it would implement.
