BY MBONO MDLULI
MBABANE – Eswatini is not among the top 10 African countries that are distressed by debts in 2024.
Eswatini might have crossed the 35 percent threshold in terms of its debt to GDP, but there are more than 10 African countries that have crossed that threshold by bigger margins. Eswatini currently stands at 36 percent on its debt to GDP, according to a report on May/June 2024 Recent Economic Developments, which was issued by the Central Bank of Eswatini (CBE).
According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the top 10 African most indebted countries include Cape Verde (93.25 percent), Mozambique (65.54 percent), Rwanda (60.19 percent), Angola (52.91 percent), Lesotho (46.80 percent), Ghana (46.54 percent), Sao Tome and Principe (46.53 percent), South Sudan (44.86 percent), Benin (44.70 percent), and Sierra Leone (43.76 percent).
Another source that excluded Eswatini from Africa’s 10 most indebted countries is an X (formerly Twitter) channel known as Africa Facts Zone. This page used sources such as CEIC Data, Trade Economics, and World Economics to come up with the list of these countries. The countries, according to Africa Facts Zone, include Egypt, South Africa, Algeria, Morocco, Sudan, Kenya, Nigeria, Angola, and Ethiopia.
These countries owe somewhere between USD 370.5 billion (over E6.7 trillion) and USD 56 billion (over E1 trillion). Eswatini’s debt is at E33.4 billion, as at the end of June 2024, which accounts for 36.1 percent of the country’s GDP.
