President Bola Tinubu has welcomed the African Union’s announcement that the African Credit Rating Agency will officially launch on October 7 in Port Louis, Mauritius.
Tinubu stated this in a post on his official X account on Thursday, describing it as another step towards building financial institutions that better understand African economies and risks.
The President said he made the case for such an institution in a February 2026 article published by the Financial Times and reiterated the need for Africa to develop its own financial institutions at the Africa CEO Forum in Kigali, Rwanda, in May.
Tinubu said the proposed agency would provide an alternative assessment of African economies, stressing that the continent was not seeking preferential treatment but fairer evaluations based on its economic fundamentals and ongoing reforms.
“Africa is not asking for favourable ratings. We are asking for fair ratings, grounded in our fundamentals and in the reforms our economies are actually carrying out,” he stated.
In his article published by the Financial Times, Tinubu argued that African countries were paying too much to borrow because of what he described as the “Africa premium” — the gap between how African economies were assessed by international credit rating agencies and their underlying economic realities.
He criticised the dominance of Fitch, Moody’s and S&P Global Ratings in determining Africa’s access to international capital, arguing that their assessments sometimes failed to adequately capture local economic conditions.
Tinubu cited a 2023 United Nations Development Programme report which estimated that shortcomings in credit ratings cost Africa about $75bn annually in excess interest and foregone lending.
He argued that an African credit rating agency could address what he described as a major weakness of the global agencies — limited on-the-ground knowledge of African economies.
According to the President, African countries with commodity-dependent economies were particularly vulnerable to downgrades during global market downturns, even when their reserves, fiscal buffers and debt profiles remained manageable.
He also cited Nigeria’s experience, arguing that improvements in economic data, fiscal transparency and reforms had contributed to recent upgrades by international rating agencies.
Tinubu said the launch of AfCRA should, however, not be viewed as a replacement for the established global agencies.
In his Thursday statement, he stressed that the agency would have to earn the confidence of international investors through independence and rigorous assessments.
“AfCRA must now earn the confidence of global capital. That confidence will rest on its independence and the rigour of its work,” he said.
The President added, “I look forward to October 7.”
