IMF
Ignores Press Qs on Chad, Sri
Lanka & Mozambique, Calls
Out Jeane Afrique, Trump Echo
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS,
January 12 – When the
International Monetary Fund's
spokesman Gerry Rice held a
on- and off-line press
briefing on January 12, the
first one in more than a
month, Inner City Press
submitted questions about
Chad, Sri Lanka, Mozambique
and structural adjustment, as
well as asking for updates on
South Sudan, Yemen and
Burundi: there were none.
Instead, Rice used one of the
few online questions he took
to declare the questioner,
Jeane Afrique, to have been
“wrong” in its reporting that
the IMF favors a devaluation
of the CFA.
Some
wondered how this differed
from US President Elect Donald
Trump declaring CNN to be
“fake news” -- especially
since unlike Jim Acosta of
CNN, Jeane Afrique was not in
the room to ask or try to ask
any follow-up questions.
(Jeane Afrique has also
reported that Trump may tap
Peter Pham as Assistant
Secretary of State for Africa
- we'll see.)
But
other than the slap-down of
JA, the IMF did not answer
questions on Chad or
Mozambique. Inner City Press
has asked:
In Mozambique it
has been suggested that the
government could simply not
recognize the guarantees for
the $2 billion “secret” debt
that would be enough to
“reduce the total foreign debt
enough to allow negotiation
with the IMF.” What is the
IMF's response?
“MF-led
structural adjustment reforms
increase protest risks in
Chad” - what is the IMF's
response?
In Sri
Lanka, weeks after the
IMF indicated the country's
foreign reserves were below
comfortable levels the
government now plans to try to
raise $1.5 billion through a
domestic bond sale. Does the
IMF think this is a good move?
On IMF conditions
reducing health care spending,
the Universities of Cambridge,
Oxford and the London School
of Hygiene & Tropical
Medicine “found that for every
additional IMF condition that
is 'binding' - i.e. failure to
implement means automatic loan
suspension - government health
expenditure per capita in the
region is reduced by around
0.25%.” What is the IMF's
response?
Well, what is
it? Rice on January 12
said the IMF's Cyprus resident
representative is at the UN's
Geneva talks, and previewed a
presentation by David Lipton
on "Africa," and a trip there
by Christine Lagarde,
including to the Central
African Republic, locus of French
impunity. Watch this site.
When the
International Monetary Fund
held its biweekly briefing on
December 8, Inner City Press
submitted a number of
questions, including this one
about Guinea Bissau:
"On Guinea-Bissau, by when
does the IMF expect
authorities to entirely unwind
the bailouts of Banco da
Africa Ocidental and Banco da
União?"
Not at the briefing,
but ten hours later, an IMF
spokesperson provided this
answer, which we publish in
full:
"The question of the legality
of the bailout contracts is
currently with the courts in
Guinea-Bissau and there is no
deadline by which the courts
have to pronounce their
verdict. IMF staff are
monitoring these developments.
As such, at this stage it
would be speculative for us to
make any statements about the
estimated timing for the
complete unwinding of the
bailouts. Overall, IMF staff
welcome the authorities’
resolute stance in unwinding
the bank bailouts. Following
through on all steps until the
bailouts are irreversibly
unwound will be important to
safeguard public finance. To
strengthen the banking sector,
it will also be necessary to
implement remedial actions
that are being elaborated
through regional banking
supervision and to enforce
existing prudential norms.’"
***
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