African journalists tasked to up their games on tracking how govts use borrowed funds

Accra

The Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) has challenged journalists to actively track how governments use debt and make them accountable.

ACEP Executive Director, Benjamin Boakye, regretted that African journalists were not doing enough in tracking how governments were spending the money they borrowed.

He said this in Accra on Wednesday at the third edition of the African Forum and Network on Debt and Development (AFRODAD).

The workshop is being hosted in partnership with ACEP.

“Africa’s debt is not aligned to development and so the media has to come in and interrogate this. It is unfortunate that politicians can borrow to fund elections and not development,” he said.

Boakey stated that African countries had continued to grapple with public debt as governments borrowed for consumption and not development.

He said it was regrettable that governments were able to borrow to fund elections and not for development, thereby finding themselves in debt distress.

“Africa continues to receive handouts and yet it has abundant natural resources. The countries continue to beg for debt forgive and yet they borrow for consumption and not for development,” Boakey said.

He emphasised the need for African countries to have proper planning before they borrowed.

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