Global credit rating agency, S&P, has kicked against claims of bias in assessing the creditworthiness of African governments, saying all receive equal treatment.
African leaders, including President William Ruto of Kenya and former Senegalese President, Mr Macky Sall, have accused foreign ratings companies of bias and a lack of transparency. It has also faced criticisms from Ghana and Zambia.
According to Mr Roberto Sifon-Arevalo, global head of sovereign ratings, the agency rated based on its methods, which he said were transparent for years.
“We don’t treat Africa or Latin America or Asia, we don’t treat anybody different,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg on Thursday. “Our criteria, our methodology, has been public for decades now and anybody can look at it.”
Mr Sifon-Arevalo rejected that notion, saying people were trying to compare African sovereigns with other economies that were structurally completely different.
“Sometimes when I speak with people looking at Africa specifically, their benchmark is Europe or the United States,” he said. “I rarely hear benchmarking themselves with Southeast Asia or Latin America.”
Mr Sifon-Arevalo said anyone can replicate ratings assessments using the S&P’s ratings criteria and methodology, adding that there is human judgment involved.
“Look, we’re people, we are entitled to opinions,” he said as per Bloomberg, “And our opinion might not be the same as as others. We try to do our best,”
Several African bodies, leaders, and lenders this year lamented the unfair ratings by established ratings firms like Fitch, Moody’s and S&P Ratings. This triggered the establishment of the African Credit Rating Agency (AfCRA), which was formed to provide accurate ratings for countries on the continent, and was supposed to commence operations in September.
The call for AfCRA was heightened after Fitch downgraded the Cairo-based Africa Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) credit rating to BBB-, one notch above junk ratings, from BBB, citing high credit risks and weak risk management policies in June.
When operational, AfCRA will seek to address that issue by having a presence on the continent, although others have raised worries about the objectivity and accuracy of the ratings.