By Nathan Gill
Feb. 14 (Bloomberg) — Ecuador will use a grace period to decide whether it will make a payment scheduled for tomorrow on its 2030 bonds, Finance Minister Maria Elsa Viteri said last night in a statement posted on the presidency’s Web site.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa in December halted payment on foreign bonds he calls “illegal” and “illegitimate,” putting the South American country in default for a second time in a decade.

“I know that we haven’t paid our external debt, but someone had to put the wash out to dry and say that this external debt has plundered our nation,” Correa said today in his weekly address to the nation.

Viteri said in the statement that the government is working with advisers on a “solution” for its foreign debt.

Last month, Ecuador made a payment on its 9.375 percent bond due in 2015 after invoking a 30-day grace period. The government views that bond’s legality differently than that of its notes due 2012 and 2030, Viteri said last month.