(Reuters) – The International Monetary Fund (IMF) executive board on Thursday approved a $149.3 million disbursement to Chad under a three-year $571 million programme, after it reached a long-delayed debt deal last month with its creditors.
“The debt treatment agreement reached with official and private creditors under the G20 Common Framework – the first in its kind – provides Chad with adequate protection against downside risks while bringing the risk of debt distress to moderate by the end of the program, as required under the IMF’s exceptional access policies,” Kenji Okamura, deputy managing director, said in a statement.
Chad agreed with creditors including commodities trader Glencore, with which it had oil-backed loans, to stretch out debt payments for longer without cutting total debt and to reconvene if an oil price fall eroded revenue.
The IMF said at the time that the agreement paved the way for the first and second reviews of a programme signed off in Dec 2021, enabling the funds to be disbursed.
Chad’s debt deal was the first to be reached under the Common Framework, a debt restructuring framework launched by the Group of 20 leading economies during COVID-19 that has been criticised for a lack of results. Zambia and Ethiopia are yet to finish negotiations that have been ongoing for almost two years.
(Reporting by Dan Burns; Additional reporting by Rachel Savage in Johannesburg; Editing by Stephen Coates)
