[stop-imf] Argentina: One Week to Satisfy IMF

[Robert Weissman]

As stop-imf friend Bob Naiman says, this declaration from the Argentine
president is quite instructive on the issue of IMF respect and concern
for borrowing country sovereignty.


World Bank Press Review: Headlines for Tuesday, May 28, 2002
Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 15:48:39 -0400

(Excerpt)

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DUHALDE SAYS ARGENTINA HAS ONE WEEK TO SATISFY I.M.F.
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Threatening again to resign if he does not get his way, Argentine
President Eduardo Duhalde yesterday set a one-week deadline for his
country to meet IMF conditions for desperately needed aid as his country
struggles through a nearly four-year-old recession, reports AFP.  An
official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Duhalde made his
threat to resign during a meeting with provincial governors of his
Peronist party in Santa Rosa, capital of the central La Pampa province. 
"Time is running out," Duhalde was quoted as saying.

Duhalde had previously threatened to resign last week if legislators did
not meet IMF demands to rescind the "economic subversion law" that
criminalizes bad business decisions and capital flight, notes the story.
 On Friday, notes the Financial Times (5/25, p.4), the lower house of
Congress rejected a bill to repeal the controversial law, which the Fund
says is being used to unfairly harass bankers.  In a clear rebuke to
Duhalde, legislators instead passed an amendment to the law that left it
virtually intact and sent it back to the Senate for further consideration.

In other news, Dow Jones reports that Duhalde said today that
Argentina's 23 provinces, all of them struggling to pay their bills,
will be permitted to issue scrip to pay state employees and government
vendors until at least next year.  Duhalde also said he hoped
multilateral lenders such as the IMF, the World Bank and the IDB will
provide direct assistance to provincial governments as a reward for
their cost cutting.

The news comes as El Pais (Spain) reports that Nobel economics laureate
Joseph Stiglitz yesterday criticized the Funda??s policies in Argentina,
saying these were the same remedies that failed in southeast Asia.  The
100 crises in developing countries of the last 20 years demonstrates
that the Fund has failed its mission to guarantee financial stability,
he added.


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