Kenyan President William Ruto does not hold back when describing the global lending system: it is “unfair, it’s punitive, it doesn’t give everybody a fair chance”.

Ruto made his blunt assessment in an interview with AFP on the sidelines of a two-day summit in Paris seeking to revamp the international financial order to better help developing nations combat poverty and climate change.

Currently, poorer countries have to pay as much as eight times more in interest rates than rich nations “because they are profiled as risky”, Ruto said.

But the Kenyan leader said his country is not looking for handouts.

“Some people do not want a mechanism where people are equal, they want us to continue this conversation where we are looking for help,” Ruto said.

“We are tired of this story” painting Africans as “victims of climate change” who are “looking for favours” and “complaining”, he said.

“We do not want to look for help. We want to participate in the solution,” Ruto said late Thursday, on the eve of the summit’s final day.

Source: ChannelsTV