Congo has just benefited from the Paris Club moratorium, which suspended payment of debt service to a number of public creditors for eight months. Government officials are rubbing their hands and assuring that the funds freed up by this initiative will be particularly injected into the social and economic recovery. If hospital services say they have already obtained funding, economic operators hope that the state will begin to pay off their debt, which has not been paid in years.
Ludovic Ngatsé, Minister Delegate for the Budget, expressed his satisfaction to the press following the announcement of the Paris Club, before explaining at length the advantages of the moratorium.
“The postponement or the possibility of not paying this debt to the Paris Club (in the period from May to December 2020) represents approximately 130 billion. The Paris Club asked the other creditors, in particular those of the London Club, who are private creditors, to follow it in this initiative. And there, we could benefit from the larger amounts. To date, we have roughly 180 billion. We hope to reach 200 billion or more, ” Ludovic Ngatsé explained.
On a social level, the management of the Brazzaville University Hospital claims to have received significant subsidies from the government which have improved its technical platform. “We have already received from the government seven of the fifteen respirators promised to us. We also received fifteen monitors, that is, patient monitors. We also received fifteen electric syringes, ” Ulrich Judicaël Biez, Deputy Director-General of CHU-B revealed.
On the other hand, the local companies which have pre-financed the works of the State ask the government to take advantage of the moratorium of the Paris Club to face their debt which would be of the order of 146 billion CFA francs. Joséphat-Roger Obesse, president of COPECO (Association of economic operators of Congo). “Let the Congolese state think about paying off its internal debt. First you have to prime to alleviate the suffering of the national private sector, ” Obesse cried out.
In 2010, Congo had benefited from the erasure of a large part of its external debt within the framework of the HIPC Initiative (Heavily indebted poor countries) before plunging back into a debt considered excessive by analysts. Most of this debt, which is about 117% of the country’s GDP, is due to China.
