Government suspends debt repayments

Prime Minister Hama Amadou announced on Friday the suspension of Niger’s internal debt of 200 billion francs CFA (US $309 million) with a view to redressing its financial crisis, Reuters reported. Amadou told financial directors of government bodies that the government, which took office in January, was separating the budget for the year 2000 from previous financial transactions. This means, he said, that requests for government payments made before January 1 were “null and void”. Niger also has a foreign debt of US $1.3 billion. Its debt service arrears amount to US $106 million. For years, Niger has been in the throes of an economic crisis worsened by depressed prices for uranium ore, its main export. In recent months, it has been hit by strikes by public service employees demanding months of back pay.