SUB-Saharan African (SSA) economies, including South Africa’s, have been subjected to a reality check in recent weeks, coming not only from the IMF and the OECD, but also from several African watchdogs.
The prognosis for Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana and his SSA counterparts is neither encouraging nor flattering. The narrative is largely the same, exacerbated by the impacts of the pandemic, the Ukraine conflict, and global economic shocks, especially rising inflation, interest rates, the cost of living and public debt. Any post-Covid-19 recovery, let alone normalisation, has been put on the back burner, at least for the near-to-medium term.
Antoinette M Sayeh, deputy IMF manager, while agreeing that many developing countries needed debt relief, could not help but inject realpolitik.
“For debt relief to be impactful countries also need to…