Jo Kuper in Washington writes: In an extraordinary
demonstration of the IMF’s habitual bullying of poor countries, and its
opposition to democratic scrutiny of its activities, senior IMF staff threw two
MPs out of the meeting of the Group of 24 Ministers from Developing Countries
on Friday 23 September. Dr. Dradjad Wibowo MP from Indonesia and Hon. Mohammed
Jagri MP from Ghana had been invited to attend the meeting by the G24
Secretariat to present a petition calling for democratic oversight of World
Bank and IMF policies, and to question World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz and
IMF Managing Director Rodrigo Rato. The petition has been signed by over 1000
MPs from 54 parliaments and is supported by a broad range of civil society
groups.
The MPs were removed on the orders
of the IMF’s parliamentary liaison officer Patrick Cricillo, and Mr. Parmeshwa
Ramlogan, an advisor to Mr. Rato. The IMF tried to justify their actions on the
grounds that they believed the MPs did not have permission to attend the
meetings, but did not even check with the G24 Chair, Mr. Paul Toungui first.
When his staff informed him about what had happened, Mr. Toungui ensured the
MPs were allowed back in, but it was too late for them to deliver their
petition.
Despite promising to let poor
countries determine their own paths to development, the World Bank and IMF
continue to impose economic conditions like privatisation and trade
liberalisation in exchange for debt relief, loans, and aid. In so doing they
often over-ride national parliaments, undermine democracy and increase poverty.
At the meeting the MPs had intended to call on all ministers to work together
to ensure there is proper parliamentary scrutiny of all IMF and World Bank
activities in their countries, and that the will of parliament is respected.
“It should beggar belief for the
IMF to throw MPs out of a poor country ministers’ meeting to stop them
presenting a petition calling for democratic accountability of the IMF itself.
In fact this is just one more demonstration of how the IMF actively undermines
democracy in poor countries, by riding roughshod over governments, parliaments
and the people they represent. How can the IMF preach transparency and accountability
to poor countries when they behave like this? said Hon. Mohammed Jagri MP (
The IMF has outlived its useful purpose. It should be desolved immediately or merged with the US treasury Dept(that is where it belongs overtly/covertly). There is nothing international about its operations. It is purposely meant to strategically tailor poor countries work to sustain America's overconcumption lifestyles. How can a body which holds less than 2% of world liquidity and which operate obvioulsy in developing countries claim to an international monetary fund?
Posted by: Anthoni | 02 August 2006 at 12:56 AM