Moody’s Calls Criticism of Africa Debt Ratings Unwarranted

Moody’s Investors Service said it focuses on the risk of default when determining debt ratings and that criticism of its assessments in Africa is unwarranted.

“I don’t accept the word that we are not fair,” Aurelien Mali, a Moody’s vice president and senior credit officer, said in an interview at the Africa CEO Forum in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. “We use the same approach to calibrate the same risk. We have ratings in Africa that are comparable to ratings in Latin America, Eastern Europe, East Asia.”