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Topic: Debt Relief: Bush, Blair Exclude Nigeria

Ochiwar
Senior Advocate
Advocate # 895

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posted

This will no doubt affect Obasanjo`s charade on war against corruption.

Debt Relief: Bush, Blair Exclude Nigeria
No cause for alarm, says Okonjo-Iweala
By Malachy Agbo with agency reports, 06.10.2005

Nigeria’s name was conspicuously missing yesterday as the United States and Britain appeared to have finally reached an agreement on debt relief for poor nations. The highlight of the reported agreement is the decision to write off $16.7 billion owed by 18 countries – Benin, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guyana, Honduras, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
The New York Times reported that the United States and Britain had reached an agreement on freeing these countries from any obligation to pay the debt. A significant omission from the list is Nigeria, whose external debt is estimated at $36 billion. President Olusegun Obasanjo was in London this week for talks with Blair over the burden.
However, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Minister of Finance, said last night that Nigeria’s hopes had not been completely dashed as the country’s campaign for debt relief was not under the approach of Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs) but under the EVIAN approach.
Okonjo-Iweala said Nigeria was not seeking 100% debt cancellation. “What we are saying is that we too deserve consideration under another approach set up by the G8 countries called the EVIAN approach. It was decided at the G8 Heads of State summit in Evian, France, two years ago. Under this approach, countries’ debt situation and the possibility for debt forgiveness will be considered on a case by case basis, depending on the peculiar circumstances of each country and the country's ability to demonstrate progress with economic reform”, she said.
CNN reported yesterday that British officials said they were confident the world's most powerful finance ministers would reach a historic deal at their meeting in London this weekend, although some differences remain between the G8, major industrialized nations. With the deadline of the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, just a month away, finance ministers meeting in London in the last two days were trying to find common ground. In addition to the United States and Britain, the G8 nations include France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan and Russia.
UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who is the current G8 president, has demanded that poor countries' debts be cancelled and their aid doubled. He and U.S. President George W. Bush agreed this week in Washington that help on debt should be given only to countries ready to tackle corruption.
The number of countries to be helped is yet to be agreed upon. Blair's spokesman said earlier this week that about 25 countries would benefit, while charities say 62 countries need urgent debt relief.
France, Germany and Japan have their own proposal that would mean debt relief for only five countries.
The New York Times yesterday quoted a senior official as saying that U.S. Treasury Secretary, John Snow and his British counterpart, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, would present their proposal to a meeting of the finance ministers of seven of the G8 nations on Friday in London.
The debts would be written off by the lenders in an effort to allow the debtor countries to start fresh, get their books in order and eventually be able to borrow again for economic development, health, education and social programs, rather than simply to repay existing loans.
Bush had signaled his willingness to go along with writing off the debts in principle, but the United States and Britain had very different approaches to how such a plan would work, the newspaper said.
Britain wanted the rich nations to take over responsibility for repaying the debts, but Washington wants the loans to be written off entirely by the lenders, the Times said.
In the end, said the paper, Britain agreed to the U.S. approach with a promise from Washington to provide additional money to the lenders to make up for the assets they were writing off.
Sub-Saharan Africa has $230 billion in external debt and pays $12 billion a year on servicing the loans, according to the most recent figures from the World Bank, Reuters reported.
A third of the debt is owed to multilateral lenders like the International Monetary Fund. Britain has said that without 100 percent multilateral debt relief, the poorest countries would pay up to $27.5 billion in principal and interest payments to international organizations between now and 2015.
All of the countries eligible for debt relief have had to show that they have acted to improve governance, reduce corruption and pursue what the international lenders consider sound economic policies.
Bush has pledged to channel more aid to developing nations that show they are working to establish stable, democratic governments with good economic policies, The New York Times said.
It added that on Monday, Bush is scheduled to meet at the White House with the presidents of five African countries that held elections last year.
They are Presidents Festus Mogae of Botswana, John Kufour of Ghana, Armando Guebuza of Mozambique, Hifikepunye Pohamba of Namibia and Mamadou Tandja of Niger.
British finance minister Brown was upbeat ahead of the weekend G8 meeting and said in an interview with The Guardian of London yesterdaythat there would be no scaling back of Britain's ambitious plans.
"There is a shared understanding that a resolution on the crushing burden of debt is urgent, and that at the Gleneagles summit we will reach agreement that action together on aid, trade and debt relief is essential," he was quoted as saying.
"I'm still aiming for 100 percent debt relief. I'm still aiming for a doubling of aid. I'm still aiming for trade justice. I'm still aiming for all these issues."© Copyright 2000-2005 Leaders & Company Limited

___________________
Biafra is inevitable.Illegitimis nil carborundum.

Posts: 760 | From: europe | Registered: Jan 2005 | IP: Logged

Dr. B
Senior Advocate
Advocate # 10

posted

Aside from Blair seemingly giving the finger to Bush in that picture, there was really never any reasonable expectation that debt forgiveness would take the form canvassed by Obasanjo, Kofi Annan, and even Blair himself in which debt from loans made to Africa's wealthiest dictators would simply be written off while those criminals maintained fat bank accounts and owned mansions around the world.

Sitting on a vast oil wealth, BiafraNigeria is not supposed to be a poor country. But, it is. Indeed, the refusal of Bush to consider Nigeria for debt forgiveness stems primarily from the absurdity of handing billions of dollars in debt forgiveness to a country ruled by a criminal whose son, Gbenga Obasanjo, is stashing billions of dollars in US and other foreign bank accounts. Worse still, confiscating Babangida's ill-gotten wealth alone and handing it to the IMF and BiafraNigeria's other creditors would virtually wipe out the country's foreign debt. But, the Yoruba moron in Aso Rock is too chicken to do that. Instead, he is scheming to return Banbangida to power in 2007.

From the New York Times article, it is clear that America always considered the debt forgiveness issue a joke mainly because someone in America would have to pay for it. Hence, the US sought to link debt forgiveness to its normal foreign aid packages to the various banana republics, including the ones in Latin America some of which a actually fairing better than BiafraNigeria under Obasanjo. When Blair pushed too hard, Bush simply added to the list certain Latin American countries with whom America has back-door deals, which will now be serviced using the proceeds of this so-called debt forgiveness.

And, thank God they did not give another penny to the embezzling idiot in Aso Rock, a man who is too dumb to know how to put to use billions of dollars in huge profits from recent high oil prices.

Posts: 253 | Registered: Mar 2001 | IP: Logged

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