Good afternoon. The government keeps talking about reaching a deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on a new loan programme. The latest example is in an interview President Daniel Chapo gave to Bloomberg Television, where he talked about renegotiating the state’s foreign debt ($9.8bn at the end of 2024) once a deal has been reached and “trust” with foreign creditors has thus been established (see below). The last such programme ended in early 2025, when it became clear that the government would not be able to meet the IMF’s targets.
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Tomás Queface
While a loan programme would give the constantly cash-starved government access to some much-needed cheap borrowing, Chapo and his ministers mainly want a deal with the IMF because of the confidence it will give to the bond markets, foreign creditors and donors. The government hopes that it will lead to a reduction in the cost of public sector borrowing, as Chapo noted, and greater help from development finance agencies.
In his Bloomberg interview, Chapo said that any deal with the IMF needed to focus on “the lives of the people”. What he seems to mean is that he does not want the IMF to make demands that will cause unrest among the poor majority. Unfortunately for Chapo, the IMF is guaranteed to make demands that “the people” will not like.
