Africa
Chinese contracts could cost DRC debt relief deal
Posted Saturday, May 30 2009 at 17:32
The Democratic Republic of Congo could fail to conclude a new debt-relief programme with the International Monetary Fund because of alleged lack of clarity in contracts signed in 2007 with Chinese mining firms. After a two- day visit, IMF Director General, Dominique Strauss Khan said DRC’s debt-relief would fail as some of their requirements have not been met.
The programme was scheduled to take place before end July. “DRC has not completed all the required conditions to be allowed to return to the programme with the IMF for the country to be eligible for the alleviation of its external debt,” he told reporters on May 24 after a press conference with Prime Minister Adolphe Muzito.
Earlier, Mr Khan met President Joseph Kabila and the two leaders of the Parliament chambers, the Senate and the National Assembly. DRC’s traditional development partners have been unhappy since it signed cooperation agreements with China to improve its key infrastructure.
In March, France’s President Nickolas Sarkozy spoke of complaints by western donors who “are afraid that the signature of such contracts with the Chinese companies are likely to overload the DRC external debt, currently estimated at $12 billion.”
This, according to the IMF director- general, is likely be reduced to $2 billion if the DRC government completes the IMF requirements before July.
-
Submitted by JosssephPosted May 31, 2009 01:22 AM
RSS
The IMF and World Bank are two tools that the Western Worlds use to keep the poor countries poor. They use the two to pretend they are helping so that the poor countries will not look for better options. Now because Congo is trying to sell their resources to a willing buyer the Western Worlds are trying to interfere with that. I hope Kibaki Raila and Kalonzo are watching this closely.