The Jubilee Blog

West Orlando News Quotes Executive Director Eric LeCompte on Puerto Rico

By Nadia Khan, Communications Associate

Executive Director Eric LeCompte comments on action needed in Puerto Rico. Read the full article here.  

Puerto Rico: Action Needed to Avoid New Bankruptcy, Reduce Child Poverty

By Rebecca Martin

In a statement on Puerto Rico’s debt settlement, 26 Puerto Rico and US religious leaders asserted that Puerto Rico will need economic development, fully-funded social programs and more than $55 billion in additional disaster aid to avoid new debt defaults. The statement comes after Congress “omnibus” budget negotiations failed to deliver additional Puerto Rico manufacturing jobs and funds for nutrition and supplemental security income. The final budget bill adds $200 million in Puerto Rico Medicaid funding.

“People across Puerto Rico continue to suffer because of the debt crisis and disasters that hit the island in recent years,” explained Eric LeCompte the Executive Director of Jubilee USA Network, the organization that coordinated the statement with Puerto Rico religious leaders. “For Puerto Rico’s debt to be sustainable and to reduce the high child poverty rates, new disaster relief and recovery monies are critical.”

 

Catholic News Service Quotes Jubilee USA on Puerto Rico's Debt

By Nadia Khan, Communications Associate

Jubilee USA Network comments on Puerto Rico's debt in an article by Catholic News Service. Read the full article here. 

Puerto Rico religious leaders welcome long-awaited debt restructuring plan

By: Dennis Sadowski

“We should make sure that the debt payments do not come at the expense of the hunger of our people, including our children, 60% of whom live in stark poverty,” he said in a statement released March 14 by Jubilee USA, an alliance of faith-based development and debt relief advocacy organizations.

In their statement, the religious leaders called on Congress, the White House, creditors and other stakeholders to begin additional measures that would prevent Puerto Rico from having to renegotiate its debt again and to ensure that responses to climate change and “staggering child poverty” are carried out.

The leaders urged that economic development be prioritized so that manufacturing jobs can expand and sustainable infrastructure be built.

They also pressed for at least $50 billion of additional disaster recovery aid and that distribution of the $55 billion already approved be accelerated.

Other measures sought by the group include moving Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories to parity with U.S. states on nutrition, child poverty reduction, Medicaid, Medicare and tax relief programs, and the importance of a “debt audit” to promote transparency and accountability and stop “corruption and impunity.”

“As the end of bankruptcy is lauded, we continue to call for a true jubilee — a world where we all have enough, can live in dignity and honor the greatness of our creator,” the statement concluded.

 

Puerto Rico: Action Needed to Avoid New Bankruptcy, Reduce Child Poverty and Support Island Recovery

26 Major US and Puerto Rico Faith Leaders Sign Statement Calling on White House, Congress and Elected Officials to Promote Island Development

By Mizraim Belman Guerrero

In a statement on Puerto Rico’s debt settlement, 26 Puerto Rico and US religious leaders asserted that Puerto Rico will need economic development, fully-funded social programs and more than $55 billion in additional disaster aid to avoid new debt defaults. The statement comes after Congress "omnibus" budget negotiations failed to deliver additional Puerto Rico manufacturing jobs and funds for nutrition and supplemental security income. The final budget bill adds $200 million in Puerto Rico Medicaid funding. 

In January, the judge in charge of Puerto Rico's bankruptcy process, Laura Taylor Swain, approved a debt restructuring for the island.

“While we wished to see deeper debt cuts… Puerto Rico has now the opportunity for a path forward, and to forge a comprehensive strategy for recovery and economic development,” the leaders said in a statement.

The agreement cuts Puerto Rico's $72 billion debt by about 55%, but debt payments will only be sustainable, the religious leaders argue, if growth and economic recovery projections are accurate. The territory’s four-year bankruptcy process took place under federal legislation Jubilee USA and Puerto Rico religious leaders promoted in 2016, after the island defaulted on debt payments.

The leaders laid out a seven-point agenda for Congress, the White House and the island's government to expand manufacturing jobs and infrastructure and moving nutrition, Medicare, tax relief and other programs to the same status with US States. The leaders also urged greater government accountability and an audit of the island's debt.

"We should make sure that the debt payments do not come at the expense of the hunger of our people, including our children, 60% of whom live in stark poverty,” said Archbishop Roberto Gonzalez who heads the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Juan and a signer of the statement.

The heads of US and Puerto Rico churches signed the letter representing Catholic, Methodist, Lutheran, United Church of Christ, Christian (Disciples), Presbyterian, Baptist and Evangelical churches. The 26 signers include leaders of the National and Puerto Rico Council of Churches, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Catholic Charities, the Caribbean Institute of Ecumenical Action and Formation, the Puerto Rico Bible Society and Jubilee USA Network.

"People across Puerto Rico continue to suffer because of the debt crisis and disasters that hit the island in recent years," explained Eric LeCompte the Executive Director of Jubilee USA Network, the organization that coordinated the statement with Puerto Rico religious leaders. "For Puerto Rico's debt to be sustainable and to reduce the high child poverty rates, new disaster relief and recovery monies are critical."

Read Religious Leaders Statement on Puerto Rico Debt Deal and Way Forward here. 

Lea la declaración de los líderes religiosos sobre el acuerdo de la deuda de Puerto Rico y el camino hacia adelante aquí.

Read Jubilee USA's January press release on Puerto Rico's debt settlement here. 

The Tablet Quotes Eric LeCompte on Restructuring Ukraine's Debt

By Nadia Khan, Communications Associate.

Eric LeCompte is quoted in The Tablet on restructuring Ukraine's debt. Read the full article here.

US Catholics express solidarity with Ukraine

By Michael Sean Winters

Eric LeCompte, executive director of JubileeUSA, a Catholic non-profit organisation that seeks to reduce the sovereign debt of developing nations, called on international financial institutions to restructure Ukraine’s estimated $94.7 billion debt. “In terms of reality, Ukraine is going to start defaulting on its various debt payments as soon as this year,” LeCompte said.

LeCompte said that Ukraine has remained current with its debt payments until now, but that the chaos created by the war will make it difficult for the country to meet its obligations. LeCompte indicated that $22 billion of Ukraine’s debt is held by international institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

Eric LeCompte Comments on Ukraine's Debilitating Debt in Barron's

By Nadia Khan, Communications Associate

Eric LeCompte writes for Barron's on Ukraine's debilitating debts. Read the full article here. 

Ukraine’s Debts Will Be Debilitating, Unless the World Helps

By Eric LeCompte

The images of families fleeing and the decimation of Ukraine are heartbreaking. 

Not since World War II have we seen a humanitarian crisis in Europe on this scale. Unlike World War II, we are witnessing the human suffering in real time as it unfolds on screens and social media. While the United Nations reports around 750 civilians have been killed and injured, including children, they assert the numbers are likely much, much higher. 

Unfortunately, while there are critical things that must be done, our failure to implement full financial crisis solutions limits the scope of the financial crisis response for Ukraine.

Ukraine currently holds $94.7 billion in debt. Ukraine will fail to pay external debts while the humanitarian crisis rages on.

 

The G7 can lead the suspension of Ukraine debt payments. Governments around the world can offer debt relief and implement efforts to protect Ukraine from paying private creditor debt. While the Biden administration has been heroic in leading financial sanctions on Russia, a Biden executive order would help stop a major portion of the $28 billion of the overall private creditor debt payments that is registered under U.S. law. This action would follow precedent when George W. Bush halted private creditor and oil obligations for Iraq’s recovery.

Reuters Quotes Eric LeCompte on Ukraine

By Nadia Khan, Communications Associate

Reuters quoted Eric LeCompte on Ukraine's debt burden. Read the full article here. 

Ukraine tapped lion's share of IMF reserve allocation, debt pressures building

By Andrea Shalal

The U.S. Treasury Department and the IMF could take several steps to ease Ukraine's debt burden and avert a payments crisis, Eric LeCompte, executive director of Jubilee USA Network, told Reuters.

Treasury could seek congressional authorization to freeze the $2 million in service payments Ukraine owes the United States this year on its $790 million bilateral debt, he said.

U.S. President Joe Biden could also issue an executive order deferring debt payments to private creditors located in the United States, he said, citing a similar move made by former President George W. Bush during the Iraq war in 2004-2005.

Doing so, he said, would send a "strong signal of support for Ukraine beyond the really good things that the administration has already been doing".

It would also ensure that private creditors don't "use this moment to try and exploit Ukraine", he said.

 

 

 

Devex Quotes Eric LeCompte on Growing Debt Crisis

By Nadia Khan, Communications Associate

Devex Invested: IFC’s focus on Africa: Makhtar Diop 1 year on

By Shabtai Gold and Adva Saldinger

Experts are worried about a distinct lack of urgency at the G-20 around the growing debt crisis, with the wealthiest nations likely to escape a major economic contraction.

“We are going to see a wave of defaults,” Eric LeCompte, executive director at the Jubilee USA Network, tells Shabtai.

While IMF and the World Bank are also concerned, the sense emerging from last week’s meeting of G-20 finance ministers is that we won’t see serious movement on an international debt relief framework until at least the leaders’ summit in Indonesia toward the end of the year — if at all.

Yahoo Finance and South China Morning Post Quote Eric LeCompte on Debt, China and the G20

By Nadia Khan, Communications Associate

Why is China being blamed for the stalled G20 debt relief plan for distressed countries?

Yahoo Finance and South China Morning Post quoted Eric LeCompte on China, debt relief and the G20. Read the full article here. 

Eric LeCompte, Jubilee USA's executive director and a United Nations finance expert, who has monitored G20 and G7 meetings since 2010, said the debt discussion was one of the most difficult conversations at the G20 meeting.

"Developing countries struggled with a lack of resources before the pandemic hit. Now they struggle with low revenues and rising debts. Without debt relief, we will see a wave of defaults and countries will run out of money to pay their creditors," LeCompte said.

He said the promise of the G20's Common Framework was that it could bring together all creditors, including China and the private sector, under one umbrella. Unfortunately, the private sector was refusing to cooperate, and China was slowing the process down, LeCompte said.

"It appears China wants to cut its own debt deals before the Common Framework process is more fully implemented. This means that the G20 is still lacking consensus to move forward their debt reduction process in a robust and quick way," he said.

"It will probably take more defaults and increased crises, when developing countries run out of money to pay debts, for world leaders to move more rapidly."

 

Eric LeCompte speaks on KPFA News about the G20 and pandemic response

By Nadia Khan, Communications Associate

The KPFA Evening News (Saturday) – February 19, 2022

Selected Statements from Eric LeCompte

"We were expecting stronger language on pandemic response, on vaccines as well as debt relief."

 

"Right now, the majority of the world's countries, which are developing countries, are either in or facing financial crisis."

"The finance ministers of the G20, who make most of the decisions for the world, including decisions for the developing countries, fell short at these meetings at delivering strongly on debt relief, ensuring vaccines are getting to developing countries, as well as a more robust response on getting aid to these countries as they are facing crisis."

Listen more here from 25:24 till 22:50.