Equatorial Guinea is still waiting for its IMF bail-out

MORE THANIMFIMFNGO a year after being promised an bail-out, the tiny petrostate of Equatorial Guinea has yet to see most of the money it hoped would revive its economy. Before oil prices slumped in 2014 the country was, on paper, one of Africa’s richest per person. But since the slump it has been weighed down by budget and current-account deficits. Its economy shrank in each of the past six years (see chart).In late 2019 the reluctantly agreed to lend Equatorial Guinea $280m over three years, despite objections from s and human-rights groups that the central African country was a bottomless pit of corruption. They have a point. The government’s management of its oil and gas revenues is opaque. It publishes few statistics on the economy and there are almost none of the usual checks and balances that hold governments to account: political opponents are routinely arrested and tortured, and there is no independent press to scrutinise the government or its spending.