The Director of Public Debts and Management Division at the Ministry of Finance, Mathew Sandi has confirmed that Sierra Leone currently has a debt amounting to 2.75 billion United States dollars.

This debt is for both domestic and external which was accumulated as a response to different economic shocks in the country.

Sandi made this statement in an interview with Radio Democracy during the engagement with stakeholders on how the ministry can strategies and update the public on the debt management policies.

He said the debt the country has currently for both domestic and external summed up to 2.75bn USD, adding that the external debt is mostly contracted by non-residents of the country like the World Bank, IMF and other bilateral institutions and the external debts may account to $1.9bn.

“This debt profile is a total public debt, but for the medium-term debt strategy that we are working on, we do always exclude the senior debt which is the IMF,” he said, adding that the IMF debts are governed by their safeguard assessment.