Recently Yahoo News on-line reported the following:
The World’s Poorest Countries Buckle Under $3.5 Trillion
in Debt (2/3)
Ezra Fieser and Yinka Ibukun
Tue, December 12, 2023 at 4:00 p.m. PST
(continue)
After the Pierre presentation, the Nigerian finance minister
had a one-on-one meeting with Citigroup Vice Chairman Jay Collins. Edun
dutifully took notes as the American executive spoke. Edun had just informed US
investors that Nigeria had access to the World Bank for a loan, which would
mean taking on $1.5 billion more in debt but also afford more breathing room.
In an interview afterward, Edun suggested that foreign direct investment and
remittances from families living abroad could return and stabilize the nation’s
currency, the naira. “Very quickly you can get a situation when a lot more comes
in from remittances and FDI, including from companies that are already in
Nigeria,” he said. Back home, Edun exuded confidence. “There is more to be
done, but Nigeria is definitely on the right path,” he told reporters in
October.
But the country was still struggling. The naira had plunged
in a free fall, and inflation surged to an 18-year high as the government
started to scrap a popular but costly fuel subsidy. Investors that month
demanded an extra 7.6 percentage points over similar US Treasuries to hold debt
from Nigeria, according to data from JPMorgan Chase & Co. President Bola
Ahmed Tinubu said in late November that budget cuts would reduce the
government’s deficit and help it keep servicing debt. Nigeria, an OPEC member
that’s produced oil since the late 1950s, may muddle through and keep Wall
Street at bay.
Yet its own citizens are growing impatient with the austerity necessary to keep up with interest payments. The country, Africa’s most populous, spends less on health care as a proportion of its budget than it did a decade ago, according to civic organization BudgIT, based in Lagos. The nation’s maternal death rate, 1,047 per 100,000 live births, is one of the world’s worst—more than 30 times higher than in the US. A leading cause of death: late diagnoses of preeclampsia, a pregnancy complication marked by high blood pressure and kidney damage.
At a public hospital in Lagos, a pediatric nurse says she cares for as many as 20 newborns at once, about five times as many as recommended. Babies die in the hospital because of the staffing shortages and lack of oxygen, power and fuel for backup generators, says the nurse, who asked for anonymity because she’s not authorized to speak about hospital conditions.
In a statement, Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Health called the infant and maternal mortality rates “a huge concern” for Tinubu’s government, saying they mostly “stem from poor health infrastructure due to limited fiscal capacity and resources.” The government plans to prioritize funding for critical areas, including immunization and maternal and child health and nutrition, and increase spending on health care in 2024.
In Ghana, Jean Adomfeh, a doctor, recalls a mother who arrived at a clinic with a 3-year-old so malnourished the child weighed about as much as a healthy 1-year-old. Still, the woman left empty-handed, with no ready-to-use therapeutic foods. “After she left, there were sad whispers around the clinic saying the child would likely not make it to the next shipment,” says Adomfeh, who’s now studying ophthalmology at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. She sees a correlation between the lack of spending on health care and a financial system that favors established nations and leaves places like Ghana “with unsustainable interest rates and debt burdens.”
Similarly, Pakistan spends eight times as much on interest payments, currently about $28 billion a year, as it does on health care. The government can’t afford ambulances, so communities rely on private services. In Badin, a rural farming region in southern Pakistan, the government hasn’t found the money to hire a cardiac surgeon at a hospital it had equipped with state-of-the-art surgical tables and defibrillators, according to Hasnain Mirza, a former elected representative of the area.
In Honduras, hospitals, which are 50 to 80 years old on average, have fallen into disrepair, with collapsing ceilings, water leaks, damaged walls and rodent infestations, according to a 2022 study by the National Anti-Corruption Council, a nongovernmental organization. The system suffers from shortages of physicians and equipment, as well as strikes by health-care workers. President Xiomara Castro has blamed high debt payments, which she’s called “thunderous and suffocating.”
(to be continued)
Translation
（繼續）
在 Pierre 演講會結束後，尼日利亞財政部長與花旗集團副主席 Jay Collins
進行了一對一的會面。 這位美國高層演講時，Edun 盡責地做了筆記。 Edun 剛告知美國投資者，尼日利亞可以向世界銀行申請貸款，這意味著尼日利亞將多承擔 15 億美元的債務，但也能提供更多的喘息空間。 在隨後的採訪中，Edun 表示，外國直接投資和海外家庭的匯款可以回流並穩定該國的貨幣奈拉。 他說： 「很快就會出現有大量的匯款和外國直接投資的情況，包括來自已經在尼日利亞的公司」。 回國後Edun 流露出自信。 他十月告訴記者說: 「還有更多工作要做，但尼日利亞絕對走在正確的道路上」。
但該國仍在苦苦掙扎。 由於政府開始取消一項廣受歡迎但成本高昂的燃料補貼，奈拉直線下跌，通膨飆升至
18 年來的高點。 摩根大通公司的數據顯示，當月投資者要求持有尼日利亞債務的利率比同類美國國債高出7.6 個百分點。總裁
Bola Ahmed Tinubu 在11 月底表示，削減預算將減少政府赤字，幫助其繼續償債。 尼日利亞是 OPEC 成員國，自 20 世紀
50 年代末以來一直生產石油，它可能會蒙混過關，並制約華爾街的行動。
然而，其本國公民對需支付利息而要緊縮越來越不耐煩。 總部位於拉各斯的民間組織 BudgIT 表示，作為非洲人口最多的國家，醫療保健支出佔預算的比例比十年前減少。 該國的孕產婦死亡率為每 10 萬 中有1,047 人，是世界上最差的國家之一，比美國高出 30 倍以上。 一個主要原因是：很晚期才診斷出子癇前症，這是一種因高血壓和腎臟損傷為特徵的妊娠併發症。
在 Lagos 一家公立醫院，一名兒科護理師表示，她同時照顧多達 20 名新生兒，大約是建議數量的五倍。 這位護士說，由於人員短缺, 乏氧氣、電力和以及備用發電機燃料，嬰兒在醫院死亡。由於無權談論醫院狀況，她要求匿名。
尼日利亞聯邦衛生部在一份聲明中稱嬰兒和孕產婦死亡率是 Tinubu 政府 “一個巨大的擔憂” ，並表示主要 “源於有限財政能力和資源而導致的衛生基礎設施薄弱” 。 政府計劃優先為免疫、婦幼健康和營養等關鍵領域提供資金，並在2024年增加醫療保健支出。
在加納，醫生Jean Adomfeh 回憶說，一位母親帶著一名 3 歲的孩子來到一家診所，孩子營養不良，孩子的體重與健康的 1 歲孩子一樣重。 儘管如此，這位女士還是空手而歸，沒有得到即食的治療食品。Adomfeh 說: 「她離開後，診所傳來悲傷的私語，說孩子可能無法生存到下一批食品的來臨」，Adomfeh 現在在北卡羅來納州達勒姆的杜克大學學習眼科。 她認為，醫療保健支出不足與有利於已開發國家的金融體系之間存在相關性，給加納等國家帶來了「不可負担的利率和債務重擔」。
同樣，巴基斯坦用於支付利息的支出是醫療保健支出的八倍，目前每年約為 280 億美元。 政府買不起救護車，因此社區依賴私人服務。 巴基斯坦南部農業區 Badin 的一名前醫生 Hasnain Mirza 表示，政府還沒有找到資金在一家配備了最先進手術台和除顫器的醫院聘請心臟外科醫生。Mirza曾當選為該地區的代表。
非政府組織國家反腐敗委員會 2022 年的一項研究顯示，在洪都拉斯，醫院平均已有 50 至 80 年的歷史，年久失修，天花板倒塌、漏水、牆壁受損和有鼠患困擾。 該系統面臨醫生和設備短缺以及醫護人員罷工的困擾。 總統 Xiomara Castro 將此歸咎於高額債務支付，她稱其為「雷鳴般的，令人窒息」。
（待續）
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