African governments say credit-rating agencies are biased against them

Since theAUUN spring of 2022, no country in sub-Saharan Africa has issued a bond on international markets. The yields on have climbed so high that most governments can no longer afford to borrow. The usual explanation is that investors are fleeing risky assets at a time of global uncertainty. But is African debt as perilous as foreign lenders assume?African governments say no. “The perception of risk continues to be higher than the actual risk,” argued Senegal’s President , speaking as chair of the African Union (), in a speech to the last year. He pointed an accusing finger at the credit-rating agencies. So did Ghana’s finance minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, in the early months of the covid-19 pandemic, as funds dried up and downgrades loomed. “Are the rating agencies beginning to tip our world into the first circle of Dante’s Inferno?” he asked. In that poem the monstrous Minos wraps his tail around his body as he sorts sinners into nine tiers of damnation.