New Telegraph The African Credit Rating Agency (AfCRA), a continental initiative to provide alternative assessments of repayment risks, plans to start operations by the end of September, according to a Bloomberg report.
The agency will publish its first sovereign rating report by the end of the year or early 2026, Misheck Mutize, lead expert on credit-rating companies at the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), an African Union structure reportedly said.
It will appoint a chief executive officer in the third quarter, and candidates have already been shortlisted, he said last week.
The initiative emerged from repeated criticism of the “big three” ratings companies — Fitch Ratings, Moody’s Ratings and S&P Global Ratings — by African governments, who’ve accused them of bias and a lack of transparency.
The so-called AfCRA will seek to address that issue by having a presence on the continent, though it faces the challenge of convincing investors its own assessments won’t be unduly positive.
Several African governments, municipalities and companies have expressed an interest in getting rated, said Mutize.
The APRM last week questioned Fitch’s downgrading of African ExportImport Bank (Afreximbank), saying the decision was flawed and reflected a “misunderstanding of the governance architecture of African financial institutions.”
The ratings company said all its supranational assessments are taken in accordance with globally consistent and publicly available rating criteria.
