Credit And Credibility: Rating Agency Errors Come With A Cost

(MENAFN- The Conversation) The rating agency S&P Global's Africa Credit Rating Trends 2025 reviews the past year's rating activities and analyses the continent's prospects for 2026. It is an important document because it interprets underlying drivers of creditworthiness. It shapes how global investors and policymakers understand risk, opportunity and reform dynamics across the continent.

But the document had some serious flaws in it. As someone who has been researching Africa's capital markets and the institutions that govern them for decades, I believe they are worth commenting on because mistakes like this can influence investor perceptions. In turn, this can reinforce existing biases and affect how African economies are priced in global financial markets.

Firstly, there were several basic errors. Burundi was mislabelled as Uganda. Sudan and South Sudan were merged into a single country despite being separated since 2011.

The report also displayed a non-existent lake in the Great Lakes region and the Republic of the Congo was casually referred to by its unofficial name, Congo Brazzaville. The agency also presented the continent as having 54 countries, excluding the Sahrawi Republic, which is recognised by the African Union.

At first glance, these errors may seem like minor technical mistakes or editorial lapses in a document focused on financial analysis. But that reading misses the deeper issue. These are not just errors on a map. Errors like this raise questions about the accuracy, depth and rigour of the research and analytical processes behind the credit rating reports that move billions of dollars across the globe.

Systematic risk overestimation is what has led to African countries being penalised with higher interest rates and limited financing options. In effect, seemingly small errors have translated into real economic costs for African economies.

Moody's made such errors in the past. It issued speculative downgrades for Kenya and Nigeria that it reversed within six and 12 months, respectively. One speculative commentary by Moody's cost Kenya over US$150 million in a derailed bond buyback programme.

The gaps

At the core of these research shortcomings is a simple but consequential reality – limited presence on the ground.

S&P Global has an office in South Africa from which the team is expected to cover the whole continent. In addition, most of its rating analysts are based in Europe and Asia. These analysts visit the countries they rate for a maximum of two weeks in a year. These short visits and inadequate consultations have resulted in risk assessments based on conservative assumptions, desktop research and publicly available information.

S&P Global has been rating Uganda since December 2008. Yet its researchers still confuse the country's location on the map.

This matters because global investors who engage Africa from a distance often operate with a cautious instinct. They still, erroneously, perceive Africa as a single, homogeneous risk bloc rather than 55 distinctive sovereigns with different risk dynamics.

Such geographical inaccuracies inadvertently validate this flawed narrative and risk perception, feeding into the misperceptions that distort capital allocation and inflate borrowing costs.

Another flaw the mistakes in the report illustrate is weak internal controls.

In global institutions like S&P Global, it is assumed that every publication undergoes multiple layers of quality assurance and editorial scrutiny. If such fundamental inaccuracies can pass through these filters, what about an analyst's own assumptions that are embedded in sovereign risk models?

Is it possible that such errors escape scrutiny?

What is also worrying is how S&P Global responded to this issue when it was raised. The errors were flagged repeatedly on S&P Global's social media platforms after the report was published, yet they remained uncorrected for nearly two weeks.

That delay was telling. It is fair to argue that these inaccuracies did not trigger the required urgency or institutional reflex because they concerned Africa. The corrections would most likely have been immediate, accompanied by formal apologies and internal reviews, if they had involved more powerful or closely watched regions. For example, if such a report had a map combining North and South Korea as one country or mislabelled Germany as France.

The reputational stakes would have been too high for the rating agency to ignore.

Way forward

Africa should not remain on the sidelines while its narrative is being driven by institutions that keep demonstrating a superficial understanding of its fundamentals.

One clear solution, in my view, is the establishment of an African credit rating agency to rebalance the narrative.

Read more: Africa's new credit rating agency could change the rules of the game. Here's how

But more needs to be done. Here are three solutions.

First, African governments must move from being passive recipients of ratings to active engagement with analysts. Where justified, they must contest assumptions, methodologies and errors. Engagement should not begin after a downgrade. It must be continuous, technical and evidence-based with credible and timely data about their economies.

Second, global institutions such as S&P Global must recalibrate their approach in dealing with Africa. Credibility is derived from consistent accuracy and timely responsiveness. They must invest in permanent senior research and analytical presence on the continent, not episodic visits. It means expanding consultation beyond a narrow set of stakeholders to include local economists, market practitioners and independent researchers. More important, strengthening internal quality controls so that basic errors do not undermine the integrity of complex analytical outputs.

Perception continues to move faster than data, and negative narratives travel further than positive fundamentals. That is why African countries must insist on analytical rigour, demand accountability and build their own capacity to interpret risk.

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