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Liberia: Country's Debt Will Not Be Forgiven, But
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The NEWS (Monrovia)
16 April 2008
Posted to the web 16 April 2008
Monrovia
Opposition politician Charles Brumskine of the Liberty Party has pointed out that Liberia's external debt in the neighborhood of four billion United States dollars will in reality not be forgiven, except that Liberia will not be paying the creditors, instead the government will be required to verifiably allocate and spend the amount that the creditors reportedly loaned Liberia.
Brumskine made this point Monday when he, on behalf of the Liberty Party, delivered a statement on "The State of the Nation from a Political Opposition's Perspective".
Although the statement commended the government for raising funds to liquidate Liberia's arrears on the debt owed the World Bank, the IMF and the African Development Bank, the statement however raised concerns that Liberia still has a long way to go in the debt waiver process for which the Liberty Party suggested the government to also focus on other debts including suppliers' credit.
According to the Party, such focuses are necessary because the arrears on the debt owed the World Bank, the IMF and the Africa Development Bank amount to a smaller share of Liberia's total external debt.
The Liberty Party also suggested that "Government should develop an economic recovery plan so that if Liberia were to successfully achieve the completion point of the HIPC (heavily indebted poor countries) process, the government would be able to raise sufficient funds from domestic sources to finance the sectors whose sustained growth is essential to full compliance with any debt waiver agreement likely to be concluded".
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It can be recalled that last March the government announced that the IMF had cleared Liberia's arrears in the neighborhood of 890 million United States dollars.
Accordingly, Liberia was said to have reached a "decision point" at which an interim debt relief was expected to have been provided under the HIPC initiative.
However, the opposition Liberty Party cautioned that all of these efforts would yield no sustainable economic benefit to the country until government is able to bring under control the "cancer of corruption". Notwithstanding, the Liberty Party alleged that the government appears to have concluded a truce with corruption, thereby implying that the government is paying lip service to combating corruption.
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