IMF urges South Sudan to halt dubious oil-backed loans
Revenue from the resource should be used for peace-related projects instead of being tied up in debts to Chinese companies
Nairobi — South Sudan should stop selling expensive and opaque oil advances, the IMF said, because loan resettlements are hindering spending vital for the implementation of a peace deal. President Salva Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar signed an accord in September, halting fighting that had uprooted more than a third of the country’s 12-million people. South Sudan was plunged into war in 2013 after a political disagreement between the two men, who hail from rival ethnic groups, escalated into a military confrontation. The government took out loans from several Chinese companies during the war, offering to repay them with future oil proceeds from fields that at their height pumped 350,000 barrels per day (bpd). “On the management of oil revenues, the mission urges the authorities to immediately stop contracting oil advances that are expensive and nontransparent,” said Jan Mikkelsen from the IMF, who led a mission to Juba. “This measure will also help to ensure that oil revenue...
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