Supporting agreements with the international institutions
Programme supported by an Arrangement under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) with the IMF approved on May 10, 2006
Total external debt of the country
$1573 million as of December 31, 2005, $363 million of which being due to the Paris Club as of December 01, 2006
Amounts treated
$363 million, of which $320 million being canceled, of which $43 million being rescheduled
Accorded treatment
Completion point reached on December 15, 2006
Categories of debt treated
Treatment of arrears as of November 30, 2006
treatment of the stock as of December 01, 2006
Repayment profile
Treatment under HIPC Initiative Exit terms
Comparability of treatment provision
The Republic of Sierra Leone was declared eligible to the enhanced HIPC Initiative by the IDA and the IMF in 2002 and was declared to have reached its Completion Point on 15 December 2006. In this context, the Republic of Sierra Leone commits to seek promptly from all its external creditors which are not participating in these Agreed Minutes, their appropriate contribution in terms of debt relief to the enhanced HIPC Initiative, on top of traditional debt relief mechanisms and consistent with the proportional burden sharing based on their relative exposure in net present value of total external debt at Decision Point after the full use of traditional debt relief mechanisms.
The appropriate nature of the debt relief provided will be assessed not only on the basis of the reduction in the net present value of the debt as computed under Appropriate Market Rate, but also on the terms of repayment of the debts not cancelled. For this purpose, all relevant elements will be taken into account, including the level of cash payments received by those creditors as compared to their share in the Republic of Sierra Leone’s external debt, the nature and characteristics of all treatment applied, including debt buy backs, and all characteristics of the reorganized claims and in particular their repayment terms whatever forms they take and in general the financial relations between the Republic of Sierra Leone and creditor countries not listed in these Agreed Minutes.
Consequently, the Republic of Sierra Leone commits not to accord any category of creditors -and in particular creditor countries not participating in these Agreed Minutes, commercial banks, suppliers and bondholders- a treatment more favourable than that accorded to the Participating Creditor Countries.
Cut-off date
01 July 1983
Organisation of the session
The meeting was chaired by M. Ambroise Fayolle, Co-Chairman of the Paris Club.
The head of the debtor country's delegation was M. John O. Benjamin, Minister of Finance.