The small island group of Comoros has received a $30 million U.S. dollar cancellation of its debit by a group of donors as a first step towards a larger annulment in the future.
The news comes as a delegation from the African Development Bank (ADB) is currently visiting the capital of Moroni. The visit is seen as a first step towards a lager deal with the International Monetary Foundation (IMF) to write off further debt for the poverty stricken country where an estimated 72 percent of the Gross National Product is spent paying off foreign debt.
“Lord knows, the country needs this break,” Opia Kumah, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) resident representative in the Comoros told the U.N. news agency IRIN news.
The IMF’s 2006 Comoros Debt Sustainability Analysis acknowledged that debt relief was essential to the future growth of a country ranked 132 out of 177 on the UNDP Index.
But the money does not come free; one condition set by the IMF is political stability, something many analysts believe is a task too daunting for the government in Moroni, which is trying to impose its rule on the semiautonomous island of Anjouan.
Separate elections on the three islands that make up the federal union in June 2007 reignited hostility between the rebels on Anjouan led by Mohamed Bacar and the central government under President Ahmed Abdallah Mohamed Sambi.
The African Union last week decided to extended sanctions imposed on Bacar and other leaders of Anjouan in October after they rebelled against the government by holding a local election in June that Bacar said he had won and began arresting dissidents.