Lack of proper transparency may hamper debt restructuring, World Bank advises

Limited transparency will reduce the debt reconciliation and restructuring of the poorest countries, the World Bank Group President, David Malpass, has advised.

He didn’t fail to mention that improving debt transparency required a sound public debt-management legal framework, integrated debt recording and management systems, as well as improvements in global debt monitoring.

He added that international financial institutions, debtors, creditors, and other stakeholders, such as credit-rating agencies and civil society have a key role to play in fostering debt transparency.

The advice comes at a time the World Bank said Nigeria stood a chance of gaining more from its migrants in the form of higher remittances to the countries.

In its latest report of migration, the Bank said Nigeria, which received about 50 per cent of remittance flows to sub-Saharan Africa, could receive $19 billion this year. While the institution admitted that the figure would be a modest improvement on last year’s $17 billion, it noted that the projection is a far cry from the $23 billion received in the pre-COVID-19 era.

It also noted a gradual adoption of formal channels of remittances in Nigeria and stressed that the trend would stimulate recovery in sub-Saharan Africa.

“Despite easing economic growth in host regions of the world, and continued uncertainty regarding the course of the pandemic, remittance receipts in sub-Saharan Africa are projected to accelerate in 2022, on the back of a gradual movement toward the use of official channels for inflows to Nigeria.

“Following the country’s substantial adjustment of 2020, there are now signs that recent policy changes may be achieving some traction. For example, an increase in official remittances of 2.5 per cent in the first half of 2021 contrasted with the same period of 2020. An anticipated 7.3 per cent increase in remittances during 2022 would carry Nigerian receipts to $19 billion, still well below the average $23 billion that characterised the immediate pre-pandemic period,” it noted.