Hundreds of workers in Ghana have been protesting on the streets of the capital, demanding the cancellation of Africa’s ballooning debt.<\/p>\n
Friday’s protest, led by Ghana’s Trades Union Congress (TUC) and backed by the International Trade Union Confederation-Africa (ITUC-Africa), called for a radical overhaul of the global debt system, which unions say is suffocating Africa’s economic prospects.<\/p>\n
Ghana<\/a> is on the frontline. Despite being the continent’s leading gold producer and world’s second-largest cocoa <\/a>exporter, its external debt stood in March at $28.5 billion, or more than a quarter of its economic output.<\/p>\n The country is only now starting to recover from one of its worst economic crises in decades, which included a 2022 debt default and inflation that at one point exceeded 50 percent.<\/p>\n “We will not pay!” protestors shouted as they marched through the capital Accra, carrying placards accusing creditors along with the International Monetary Fund and World Bank<\/a> of strangling the African continent.<\/p>\n “When you look at the process, the creditors and the agreements that led to our debt, it’s like an elephant and a small animal facing off in a boxing ring, thinking they’re fighting on equal terms. We’re in a system that needs to be changed,” Andrews Adoquaye Tagoe, a Ghanaian and one of the rally’s organisers, told RFI.<\/p>\n Ghana to default on most international debt<\/a><\/p>\n Cancelling debt as reparative justice<\/p>\n Africa’s external debt has now surpassed $1.3 trillion, with Ghana among more than 20 countries restructuring its obligations.<\/p>\n In Ghana, the crisis led former president Nana Akufo-Addo<\/a> to request a $3 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF<\/a>).<\/p>\n A petition signed by ITUC-Africa’s general secretary Joel Akhator Odigie and submitted to Ghana’s government, called for the “total and unconditional cancellation of Africa’s unsustainable external debts as an act of reparative justice”.<\/p>\n “More than half of African countries are already in or at high risk of debt distress, leaving governments unable to finance essential services,” the petition said, adding that any freed-up resources should go towards job creation, wages, social protection, climate resilience and structural transformations.<\/p>\n “This is not just a financial challenge; it is a human development and democratic crisis,” it added.<\/p>\n Zambia asks France to use ‘influence’ to speed up debt restructuring<\/a><\/p>\n