By N Sathiya Moorthy
If someone thought the IMF was the last resort of nation’s facing an economic crisis, then you are mistaken.
Of course, ask the average Sri Lankan, he would tell you how this time as ever before, IMF conditionalities for loan-disbursements end up pushing costs and prices, and pushing down the real value of their earnings, daily, weekly or monthly. Those earning annually do not have to care one way or the other though they too would feel the pinch in very many small ways.
Here now comes the icing on the IMF cake, if it could be called so. According to recent reports, the country will be paying two kinds of surcharges on the loans obtained from the IMF. One is based on the amount borrowed by a nation and the other is on the time-duration for which it is borrowed.
It is not just about the surcharges that the nation would have to pay the IMF this time round. It would also be interesting to know how much the country had paid as surcharges in the past – and also the amount borrowed.
The long and short of it is that the IMF’s terms for doling out loans to nations that are stuck in the middle, whatever the reason for their failure in the first place, sounds usurious, to say the least. In another time and context, Shakespeare personified it in the character of Shylock.
Because we are living in the 21st century and the IMF lends money to governments that are impersonal in character and content – and not to individuals made of flesh and blood, they may not ask for a piece of flesh from near the borrower’s heart, as Shylock alone was known to have demanded. There are no Portias here to tell the lender to take …read more
Source:: Colombo Gazette