20101031
reuters

ABIDJAN/LONDON (Reuters) - Ivory Coast stood hours away from missing an international debt payment on Friday, with one of the crisis-torn country's rival governments saying the cash had run out and the other offering no guarantees.

The West African state has been plunged into political turmoil by a dispute between Laurent Gbagbo and rival presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara over who won a November 28 second round poll, and each has named a parallel administration.

The first payment of nearly $30 million on a $2.3 billion Eurobond is due by the close of business in New York on Friday, though a 30-day grace period means the country would not be in default until Feb 1.

Ivory Coast's debt has already been restructured twice because of past defaults, and any repetition would leave it frozen out of international debt markets.

A spokesman for Ouattara's government said the coupon would not be paid on time because of a lack of money, while a spokesman for Gbagbo's government said it was not yet clear whether the payment would be made.

World leaders have heaped pressure on Gbagbo to step down after electoral commission results showed he lost to Ouattara by a near 8 percentage point margin, but he has resisted and retains control of the military and of government buildings.

A bitter power struggle has left more than 170 people dead and led the World Bank to freeze aid of more than $800 million. U.N. officials fear huge ethnic bloodshed if civil war re-starts.

The West African regional central bank last week cut Gbagbo off from Ivorian accounts, potentially worsening a cash crunch that could make it hard for him to pay wages of civil servants and soldiers who back him, let alone meet coupon payments