Don Smith
VETERAN TRUTHSEEKER
Joined: 14 Jan 2008
Posts: 3264
Location: Puget Sound
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 Posted: Thu Jul 22, 2010 6:23 pm Post subject: IMF cancels Haiti debt, approves new $60 mln loan |
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| Quote: | IMF cancels Haiti debt, approves new $60 mln loan 21 Jul 2010 23:26:39 GMT
Source: Reuters
* IMF program does not restrict aid spending
* Loan will help central bank manage volatility
* IMF urges donors to deliver on aid promises
(Adds details from conference call)
By Lesley Wroughton
WASHINGTON, July 21 (Reuters) - International Monetary Fund member countries on Wednesday canceled the $268 million debt Haiti owed to the IMF and approved a new loan worth $60 million to boost international reserves in the earthquake-hit nation.
The IMF said in a statement that both steps will help Haiti's reconstruction efforts following the devastating Jan. 12 quake, which destroyed the capital Port-au-Prince and left 1.5 million people homeless.
The new three-year loan carries zero interest rate until the end of 2011, part of a scheme agreed in July 2009 to help poor countries needing IMF assistance. After that rates will remain low.
IMF mission chief to Haiti, Corinne Delechat, said the IMF financing was not intended to ratchet up Haiti's debts again but was intended to help the central bank manage volatility that could arise from large aid flows going into the country.
"The purpose of the Fund program is not to provide resources for the reconstruction, because we're not the best institution for that," she said, noting that donor countries and institutions like the World Bank were able to provide grant handouts, which would not add to Haiti's debts.
Delechat said the IMF program did not restrict aid spending.
"All the spending that can be financed by donor money is allowed under the program ... the idea is to facilitate the absorption of the aid," she said.
The IMF said Haiti's recovery after the quake was still fragile and the biggest contributor to economic growth would come from reconstruction efforts.
It forecast that the economy would expand by around 9 percent in fiscal year 2011-12, slowing to 6 percent by 2015 as rebuilding tapers off.
In statement, IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn urged donors to make good on their aid promises to Haiti, so that reconstruction can be accelerated and social tensions soothed.
Donors pledged $9.9 billion to Haiti's reconstruction at a conference in March, of which $5.3 billion is to be disbursed over the next 18 months.
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, who co-chairs the Haiti reconstruction commission, has complained that donor funding is flowing too slowly and holding up the rebuilding process.
Delechat said the IMF hoped that the approval of the program would be a sign of confidence in the government's policies and encourage donors to pay up. |
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N21140528.htm
Given the IMF role in destroying the Haitian economy before the earthquake, I am very sceptical about the actual effects of this loan upon real events on the ground in Haiti.
IMF loans are a ploy to take control of local resources and wealth in the nations which become "clients" of this organisation, I see nothing which marks a change in this system.
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" A bayonet is a tool with a worker at both ends."- Lenin
Patriotism is a manifestation of the Stockholm Syndrome.
"How does it become a man to behave toward this American government to-day? I answer that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it."
-Thoreau
"Information is the currency of Democracy." Jefferson |
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