Archbishop Tutu says debt deal must be monitored

LONDON - South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Tutu urged officials yesterday to monitor closely a deal to wipe out the debt of impoverished countries to ensure funds were not diverted by corrupt leaders.

The Group of Eight industrialised nations agreed on Saturday to cancel more than US$40 billion in debts to multinational lenders of 18 mainly African countries.

Veteran democracy campaigner Tutu welcomed the move as "a splendid start" but said the New Partnership For Africa's Development (NEPAD) and the African Union (AU) must guarantee money is not misused.

"It's so important that NEPAD and the AU should begin to be quite serious about applying their review system to ensure that money that is going to be saved does in fact go to the people who most need it," Tutu told BBC Television.

"I think that most of Africa is aware that we are on the line as it were," he added.

Tutu, who is on a speaking tour of the United Kingdom, said Africa had a long history of corrupt leaders, adding the West had supported many of them in the past.

He said he hoped G8 leaders would extend the debt write-off deal to cover some 62 countries that are heavily indebted.

He also urged rich nations to boost aid and revise trade rules under which wealthy countries received farming subsidies, enabling them to produce cheaper goods that were being dumped in Africa and pricing African produce out of world markets.

"I hope that the heads of these different countries will be sensitive and say we are on the same side, we want to eradicate poverty, we want to ensure that trade conditions are equitable and we want to increase aid," he said.

Tutu said he had no explanation for South Africa's "relative silence" on human rights abuses in neighbouring Zimbabwe, where he described the situation as "horrendous".

But he added: "I don't think we should hold the people to ransom because their leaders are sometimes not prone to be doing what they should be doing."

- REUTERS