First Deputy Managing Director of International Monetary Fund (IMF), David Lipton, said on May 9, 2016, that African countries need to find the right balance when seeking for financing for their infrastructure projects to avoid falling into excessive debt.

“Infrastructure projects can be very successful in supporting growth if countries pick the right projects and carry them out in an efficient fashion,” Lipton said while visiting Kenya.

Cited by Bloomberg, the IMF executive said any mistake or failure during selection and financing of infrastructure projects was likely to lead to more debt than benefits. “Many countries have recently overcome problems with debt and it’s important that they don’t develop new debt problems,” he said. “I don’t see countries right now that are worrisome, but it is a risk that countries have to be careful to avoid,” he added.

Many sub Saharan African nations, including Ghana and Mozambique, have demanded aid from IMF in the past months as costs of loans in international markets have soared. Budget deficits of most of these countries have indeed deepened amid fall in prices of commodities.

Mid-April 2016, IMF decided to cut its aid to Mozambique after it found out that a debt of nearly one billion dollars had not been included in official statistics. A delegation of experts from the Washington-based institution was to visit Maputo to evaluate the country’s public accounts and give approval for the continuation of aid but was cancelled. Since, Mozambican authorities admitted they were in the wrong and provided IMF with new data, subsequent to a meeting between Prime Minister Carlos Agostinho do Rosario and IMF’s director, Christine Lagarde.