The African Union Bureau of Heads of States comprising leaders from South Africa, Egypt, DRC, Kenya and Mali have called on creditor nations and multilateral institutions to immediately suspend interest payments for Africa on its external public and private debt.
In a statement obtained by Money FM News, the leaders said: “this is to enable African countries to create fiscal space to respond to the devastating effects on the African economies, by the COVID-19 pandemic.”
And Zambia’s Ambassador to Ethiopia and Permanent Representative to the African Union, Emmanuel Mwamba stated that the Communiqué of the leaders of the African Union Bureau was issued after they held the latest teleconferencing meeting on 3rd April 2020 to discuss Africa’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The communiqué stated that the leaders have called for a comprehensive stimulus package for Africa and for concrete support as pledged by the G20 and other international partners.
The African leaders called on the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) to review their current disbursement policies to display flexibility and speed including raising the availability of the IMF special drawing rights.
The Communique further called for the immediate lifting of sanctions on Zimbabwe and Sudan.
The Communique stated that the Bureau has also created the Ministerial Coordination Committees of the African Union’s Response to COVID-19 on Transport and Finance, following the creation of the ministerial one on Health.
“The Bureau has called for member states to have equal access to COVID-19 ventilators, test kits, masks and personal protective equipment and vaccines when available,” the Communiqué stated.
The leaders expressed satisfaction that the African Union COVID-19 Response Fund established on March 26th 2020 already had raised seed funds amounting to $17million.
They thanked the People’s Republic of China for its support and further thanked the Jack Ma Foundation, the World Food Programme (WFP), CDC and Prime Minister Abiy for delivering one million diagnostic test kits, six million masks, and personal protective kits to all African Union member states.