Nigeria and other African countries who are members of the G-24, are set to discuss debt relieve, disaster aid and crises prevention with senior staff from the International Monetary fund (IMF) at the ongoing Annual meeting in Bali, Indonesia.
Finance Minister, Aisha Ahmed who is the leader of the Nigerian delegation to the Annual General Meeting of the IMF and the World Bank, is expected to be part of the meeting.
The Group of 24 (G-24), a chapter of the G-77, was established in 1971 to coordinate the positions of developing countries on international monetary and development finance issues and to ensure that their interests were adequately represented in negotiations on international monetary matters.
The meeting is coming on the heels of World Economic Outlook report which lowered global projections to 3.7 for 2018 and 2019.
The IMF had in April warned that not enough has been done to prevent future financial crises.
Eric LeCompte, a financiall expert and executive director of Jubilee USA said: “We are seeing growing debt crises in many developing economies, at the same time, we see risky and speculative behaviour on the raise.
“We know that risky behiour and unsustainable debt is a recipe for financial crises.”
The position of the IMF is consistent with the one raised by the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mrs. Amina Mohammed about the rising level of Nigeria’s debt
Speaking at the IMF and the United Nations (UN) Working Together Conversation, Mohammed, who was Minister of Environment under the current government of President Muhammadu Buhari, warned that Nigeria might return to the unhealthy debt situation of the 1980s and early 2000s.
It will be recalled that Nigeria was removed from the shackles of debt burden in 2006 through a US$18 billion debt buy back arrangement that saw the country pay over US$12 billion to the London and Paris clubs under the President Olusegun Obasanjo government.
