Claims that Mali is now debt-free have been circulating on the internet in the past few days. One of such was an X post on Friday.

Mali is debt free; Giant of Africa children dey owe 612k each 😔😔😔 pic.twitter.com/gDW9NPhgQK— Harry 🎯🎯🎯 (@chiditweets042) November 15, 2024

“Mali is debt-free; Giant of Africa dey owe 612k each,” one post went.

As of press time, the post has had over 296,000 views, more than 1,800 reposts and up to 7, 400 likes.

EQ also found similar claims on another microblogging platform, Thread.

“Mali is now a debt-free country,” the post read.

“The country’s finance minister has announced. Mali becomes the first African country to be debt-free. After the military took over, they sold all the assets belonging to corrupt elites and sent them to jail, including former president’s son and minsters.”

READ ALSO: FACT-CHECK: Did FG Release Men Instead of Minors as Claimed on X?Many other X users have also gathered engagements with this post in the past few days.

Mali 🇲🇱 is now free from every foreign and domestic debt. Général d’Armée Assimi Goïta has proven to every other African country and puppets, that we can be self reliant in our own resources rather than borrowing. pic.twitter.com/WKqHu1HvFF— Typical African (@Joe__Bassey) November 10, 2024

Mali is now a debt free country.The country Finance Minister has announced, Mali becomes the first African country to be debt free. After the military took over, they sold all the assets belonging to the corrupt elites and sent them to jail including former president’s son &… pic.twitter.com/y9QwQzMCpt— Charly Boy Area Fada 1 (@AreaFada1) November 15, 2024

Another X account, Charly Boy Area Fada 1 @AreaFada1, attributed the claim to Mali’s economy minister:

Mali is now a debt free country. The country Finance Minister has announced, Mali becomes the first African country to be debt free. After the military took over, they sold all the assets belonging to the corrupt elites and sent them to jail including former president’s son & Ministers. When will it be our turn?

The post by @AreaFada1 has gotten over 154,000 views, 3,300 likes and 1000 reposts.

CLAIM: Mali is now debt-free as announced by the country’s economy minister.

VERIFICATION: EQ traced the possible source of this claim to an October report by Reuters with the headline: Mali to pay off $332 million of internal debt, says minister. In the report, Alousseni Sanou, the Malian economy minister, said the country would pay off 200 billion CFA francs, an equivalent of $332 million of its internal debt, from the following week after that announcement.

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In the report, the minister did not exactly state the overall figure of Mali’s internal debt. However, “200 billion CFA francs ($332 million) of its internal debt” clearly shows that the payment to be made is a fraction of the entire debt — not the total.

It would be erroneous to conclude that a country is debt-free even if it pays off all its internal terms, as debts can be both internal and external.

While internal debts refer to funds that a country owes to lenders within its own borders, external debts are are owed foreign creditors such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

In January 2023, the IMF considered the structural flow adjustment (SFA) measure in stabilizing external debt of West African countries. In the report, the IMF concluded that “debt stabilizes for all countries in the region, except Mali”.

Another separate report by the World Bank in 2021 states that Mali’s public debt-to-GDP ratio was projected to rise to 60 per cent over the medium term. The medium term here refers to a period of between three and five years.

CONCLUSION: Alousseni Sanou, Malian economy minister, did not say Mali was debt free. He only said Mali would pay 200 billion CFA francs ($332 million) of its internal debt till so as to ease the country’s debt burden.

VERDICT: The claim that the Malian economy minister said the country had become debt-free is false.
The post FACT CHECK: Is Mali Now Debt-Free as Nigerians Are Claiming? appeared first on Foundation For Investigative Journalism.