Kinshasa, June 24th, 2021 (CPA).- The Board of Directors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has agreed to finance the economic program of the President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Felix Antoine Tshisekedi, for the remainder of his mandate, with a leverage effect of USD 1,500,000,000, CPA learned on Thursday from a source close to the Presidency.
The source recalls that the staff of IMF who were already in contact, in May, with the government of DRC, had announced to have found, with the Congolese party, an « agreement » on « a financing plan of 1.5 billion USD over three years ”. Enough to support its medium-term program, focused on supporting the post-Covid-19 recovery and relaunching the reform program.
All this, it is said, with the aim of « increasing and supporting inclusive growth and reducing poverty, in accordance with the government’s priorities set out in 2019-2023 national strategic development plan. »
COVID-19 negatively impacted the public finances of the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2020, so that the country’s GDP only increased by 1.7%, despite the expansion of the mining sector with, in particular, the increase cobalt and copper prices. IMF experts also agree that it could increase by 4.9% in 2021.
The validation of this three-year program by the management and the board of directors of IMF « would give access to other financing from other bilateral and multilateral donors », they say.
Path open to investors
Thanks to this opportunity, “the Democratic Republic of Congo today has the capacity to easily borrow on the financial markets more than 15 billion US dollars to finance its modernity, its basic infrastructures (schools, hospitals, roads, highways, production tools etc.)”, reassures the source, the country having mortgages, because of its natural resources that it can take as a pledge to donors of public or private funds.
This announcement is encouraging for foreign investors willing to invest in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and opens the door to further funding from donors, both bilateral and multilateral as well as private.
« By the fact that the IMF granted a financial envelope to the Democratic Republic of Congo of more than one billion American dollars, this reinforces the credibility of its sovereign signature on the international financial markets », it is reported.
This funding is timely to boost the program of the President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, among others, in its components relating to basic infrastructure as well as the revival of the economy.
To those who would allude to the weight of the debt which would weigh on the future generation, the source notes that « everything that the populations of the whole world admire in the white Western world, in Asia (Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea) South and even South Africa with its sumptuous cities, have been acquired by debt ”. ACP/Matadi