Activists wary of Egypt-IMF negotiations
A team from the International Monetary Fund is in Cairo this week to discuss details of a long-awaited loan package. Many voices in Egypt have opposed an IMF role, and an umbrella group of activists and political opponents is seeking to keep that opposition alive as negotiations proceed. Via BusinessWeek: Egypt’s talks with the International ...
A team from the International Monetary Fund is in Cairo this week to discuss details of a long-awaited loan package. Many voices in Egypt have opposed an IMF role, and an umbrella group of activists and political opponents is seeking to keep that opposition alive as negotiations proceed. Via BusinessWeek:
A team from the International Monetary Fund is in Cairo this week to discuss details of a long-awaited loan package. Many voices in Egypt have opposed an IMF role, and an umbrella group of activists and political opponents is seeking to keep that opposition alive as negotiations proceed. Via BusinessWeek:
Egypt’s talks with the International Monetary Fund for a $4.8 billion loan should be frozen because the negotiations are secretive and lack popular support, according to a letter released by 17 political parties, civil organizations and labor groups.
The loan negotiations process has “lacked transparency” from the government and IMF, talks continue in the absence of a parliament and public consultations have been “inaccessible,” according to the letter from the Popular Campaign to Drop Egypt’s Debt, an umbrella group, and addressed to Prime Minster Hisham Qandil and IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde.
The Popular Campaign’s website is here. Their focus is on the illegitimacy of the debts incurred by the Mubarak regime:
Egypt’s external debt is a direct result of Mubarak regime’s failed economic policies, which resorted to external borrowing as a quick fix for complex economic problems. These problems remain unresolved until today and require alternative strategies to address them. Although Egyptians did not have a say over the need for external borrowing nor the priorities over which the loans will be spent for, they continue to suffer from Mubarak’s debt burden even after his fall. It is also needless to mention that corruption has been festering all through out Mubarak’s reign and in all sectors and insitutions, that it is highly expected to have inflitrated debt management as well as project implementation.
It would be interesting to know whether the campaign has linked up with international debt relief movements and with activist groups skeptical of the IMF’s role.
David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist
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