[stop-imf] Zambia: Business Against IMF; "Our government is more accountable to the IMF and World Bank than to us" - very harsh editorial

[robert weissman]

http://allafrica.com/stories/200603160272.html

Zambia [editorial]: Building Consciousness Against IMF Policies

The Post <http://www.postzambia.com/> (Lusaka)

EDITORIAL
March 16, 2006
Posted to the web March 16, 2006

Lusaka

Everything in life seems to have its own time. Who could imagine a
representative of the Zambian business community criticising the
policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and other
multilateral institutions?

For many years, our Zambian business community was in support of the
policies and programmes of the IMF. They were in the forefront urging
government to meet the conditionalities of the IMF. There is no policy
or programme of the IMF that they openly criticised. They supported all
IMF policies and programmes, including privatisation. There are reasons
for this. Firstly, some of them were misled into believing their
businesses would benefit from these policies and programmes. They never
thought these programmes would affect them in the same way they were
affecting the workers and the poor. They thought it would be easy for
them to do business with the transnational corporations.

Some of them thought they would appointed agents of transnational
corporations or would be made to serve on their boards and receive huge
sitting allowances. This has not happened. Very few of our business
people have benefited from dealings with transnational corporations. It
is not only the worker who has been affected by the IMF policies and
programmes, the businessman is now also feeling it. If the worker is not
happy and the businessman is not happy, then who is benefiting from the
IMF policies and programmes? Where does the success of these programmes
lie if not with the business people and the workers?

The truth is these policies are a failure and its time our business
people and our workers - together with our government - started working
on alternative policies and programmes. However, this is not easy
because the conditionalities we are subjected to by the IMF don't allow
it. We have to follow their prescriptions or face blackmail. Not
following IMF conditionalities means no access to finance even from
bilateral donors. We have to get an IMF clearance before anyone can deal
with us. What this means is that our government cannot take independent
initiatives to develop our economy. We have to do what the IMF wants.
However, when we attempt to resist, we are told we can do what we want
as a free nation but we have to take into account the consequences of
our decisions. We are told to manage our affairs prudently. But when one
analyses what this means, it boils down to the reality that to act
prudently means to follow the IMF conditionalities to the letter.

We are also told that these conditionalities are not an imposition on
our country; they are a product of negotiations. But really, what can a
government like ours which they have weakened and undermined so much
negotiate with the IMF? The negotiating conditions are not equal, there
is no level playing field.

In the end, the IMF invariably gets its way. There is no democracy in
the way the IMF deals with us. In fact, it is impossible for a
government to follow the IMF policies and programmes and remain
democratic. This is because for a government to implement IMF policies
and programmes, it has to stop listening to the wishes and cries of its
people; the government has to be prepared to use its repressive agencies
against the people all the time as they attempt to challenge these policies.

Our people, including the business community and indeed even our own
government, have no real or meaningful input into these policies and
programmes. Out of embarrassment, it is not unusual to hear our
political leaders claiming ownership of these policies and programmes.

Former president Frederick Chiluba even used to claim that he worshipped
these policies in the morning, noon and evening. It will be impossible
for our country to make any meaningful progress if the economic destiny
of our country is left in the hands of IMF bureaucrats. It cannot be
denied that the IMF and the World Bank employ highly educated people.
But these are people without political or social responsibility, people
who have not been elected by anyone and who owe no one other than their
employers any obligation.

And moreover, these are people who have never run anything - most of
them not even a village or a tea-room. They owe everything to the
gigantic salaries they receive from these institutions. Some of them
even know that the policies they are made to impose on our countries are
not doing any good but causing a lot of damage and untold suffering to
our people. But like Judas Iscariot, few of them have demonstrated
conscience. Yes, we have a few of them who have denounced the policies
and programmes of these institutions after leaving their employment.

And as Basinati Mpepo has correctly observed, our government is more
accountable to the IMF and World Bank than to us. What the IMF and World
Bank ask of them, they have carried out even if the great majority of
our people are opposed to it. An example of this is the privatisation of
Zambia National Commercial Bank. The IMF and World Bank have been
insistent on the privatisation of this bank as part of their
conditionalities. The people of Zambia have been strongly opposed to
this privatisation. Even our members of parliament voted overwhelmingly
against the privatisation of this bank. Even our country's President -
Levy Mwanawasa - is on record opposing the privatisation of this bank.
But money speaks and the IMF is carrying the day; its will has to be
done - Zambia National Commercial Bank is up for privatisation. Where is
democracy in this? Where is self rule in all this? Who are the ultimate
decision makers in our country? The answer is a categorical: IMF and
World Bank.

But without shame representatives of the IMF and World Bank come here
and preach good governance and democracy to us and our leaders. What
democracy are these gentlemen talking about when they can subject an
entire nation and its leaders to such humiliation? What economic
decisions have they left for us and our leaders to make when almost
every key decision is made by them - directly or indirectly?

It's good our people in business and civil society in general are
starting to wake up to the reality of living under the bondage of the
IMF and World Bank imperialism and are starting to resent it. Slowly but
surely, our people are starting to develop consciousness on our
relations with the World Bank and the IMF. Soon they will start to
devise policies and programmes of how to resist and fight this
subjugation and start to take effective control of the economic destiny
of our country. This is inevitable. We have no choice but to struggle if
we have to harbour any hope for survival and take full control of the
economic destiny of our country.

However, this calls for unity among our people - the business people and
their organisations, the workers and their unions, civil society
organisations and our politicians need to come together.