Hurricane Irma: IMF is resisting a moratorium on Barbuda's sovereign debt repayments

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The International Monetary Fund is resisting putting a moratorium on Barbuda's sovereign debt repayments in the wake of the devastation left by Hurricane Irma on the tiny Caribbean island.

Barbuda is said to have lost around 90 per cent of its structures in the wake of the storm and the national repair and reconstruction bill has been estimated at $150m.

The prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne, has also said that around half or the island's population of 1,600 is now homeless.

Yet Antigua and Barbuda have debt with the IMF of around $15.8m and a coalition of US faith institutions have been calling on the Fund to pause the repayments of states battered by the hurricane.

However, the IMF's special representative to the United Nations, Christopher Lane, reportedly suggested late last week that the Fund would rather lend more money to the island, rather than stop collecting the repayments due.

"Our general view is that we’d rather put new money in than to have moratoria,” he said, according to Court House News.

Stressing that were technical and political difficulties in simply stopping the debt collection he said: “We borrow money from our members who lend. So we’d have to get agreement from the lending parties.”

"We might borrow money from the United States and loan that to Antigua. If we don’t get paid back on time, we’d have to make an arrangement with the source of the funds themselves. It gets a bit arcane, but there’s a number of constraints on how we operate. We’re like a bank. We borrow and lend.”

In a letter to the IMF managing director Christine Lagarde on 7 September the Jubilee USA network wrote: "We invite the IMF to implement an immediate moratorium on debt payments for countries severely impacted by the Category 5 storm until they have rebuilt and recovered."

"For example, the nation of Antigua and Barbuda has almost $3m in debt payments due to the Fund today and a debt payment moratorium could immediately be put into rebuilding Barbuda where almost the entire population is homeless."

The group also urged that further IMF reconstruction payments to Barbuda, and other affected islands, should be in the form of grants, rather than loans.

Irma's speeds reached 185mph and killed at least 37 people across the Caribbean's islands.

Antigua, which has a population of 80,000, and lies around 40 miles to the south of Barbuda, however, escaped major damage.

The hurricane reached Florida on Sunday, leaving 62 per cent of the state without power.