IMF suspends budgetary support to Guinea Bissau over "bad debts"

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has suspended budgetary support for Guinea Bissau in 2016 due to "bad debts" of over 12 billion CFA Francs (about 20 million U.S. dollars), an official source said Thursday.

The suspension was announced on Thursday by Felix Fischer, an IMF official, at the end of an evaluation mission by the institution in Guinea Bissau.

He said the new Guinea Bissau government should try to control government expenditure.

The IMF equally called for reduction of public expenditure and increase of revenue "to reduce the financial deficit in the state budget."

"The government will work with its partners to resolve the problem," Guinea Bissau's Budget Secretary Orlando Mendes Veigas said in a short statement to the media.

Guinea Bissau, one of the poorest countries in the world, has been mired in a political crisis for the last eight months, making it difficult for the government to function. Endit