GOVERNMENT has expressed concern that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) instruments have not been fundamentally tailored to help meet fiscal requirements of Low Income Countries (LCIs).
Finance and National Planning Deputy Minister, Chileshe Kapwepwe said the IMF resources should be allowed to be used to meet fiscal needs and financing gaps in the budget as part of structural reforms in Low Income Countries.
Ms Kapwepwe said this in Livingstone today when she officially opened a Workshop on Formulation of a Strategic Framework and Action Plan for the Enhanced Engagement of Africa with the World Bank group at Zambezi Sun.
She said as regards to the Zambian experience, the World Bank’s rate of reaction to the global financial crisis has been lukewarm adding that the bank still has delays emanating from too many procedures and excessive conditions.[quote]
Ms Kapwepwe further noted that the World Bank lacked predictability in the disbursement of resources citing the US$20 million budget support facility that was agreed in January 2009 as having not yet been released as the bank has cited an unachieved conditionality.
She said this was despite the country being faced with huge revenue deficits in the budget caused by the crisis adding that the bank, unlike other International Financial Institutions (IFIs) has also been reluctant to frontload assistance to deal with the effects of the crisis.
”We have also noted that the bank has still maintained an excessive number of missions for feasibility studies on projects, which studies take long. These are followed by lengthy project designs and approvals. This practice has continued without reform. This has resulted in the undermining of the bank’s role as global leaders in development financing,” she said.
She further noted with concern that the IFIs in general were not putting in place long term support beyond the crisis stage to ensure full recovery.
Ms Kapwepwe said as part of the strategy, the Bank needs to show flexibility by allowing access to more funds for high return public sector projects rather than continue opposing alternative borrowing from new lenders such as China and India without offering lasting alternatives.
She commended the World Bank and the African Union for organising the three day workshop currently taking place in Livingstone adding that it would surely resolve some of the problems facing the Low Income Countries.
Ms Kapwepwe said the meeting was a prudent idea for Africa as it would soon position the continent in a way that would ensure that it benefits from the facilities that had been put in place.
She added that African countries should not allow current facilities to become political tools by some sections of the international community to manage the continents’ economies as had been the case in some instances.
Ms Kapwepwe urged participants at the workshop to ensure that strategies formulated from the workshop are accompanied by continued advocacy for greater voice and representation in the World Bank Group.
And speaking earlier, African Union Commissioner for Economic Affairs, Maxwell Mkwezalamba said the outcome of the workshop would be tabled at the G20 summit due to take place in Washingston later next month.
Dr Mkwezalamba noted that in as much as funds were available, African countries found it difficult to access the funds due to conditionalities attached to it.
He hoped that after tabling the resolutions of the workshop, the World Bank would consider easing conditions for accessing funds.
Dr Mkwezalamba said the AU was looking forward to the revision of the conditionalities to allow Low Income Countries to access the funds in the face of the financial economic crisis.
He also challenged Africa to look at the need of mobilising the continents’ own resources.
ZANIS
I hope you will put in action what you are talking about at that conference.
Why complain when you are ready to give $8m to Chiluba. We are not a low income country otherwise we cannot allow people like Chiluba to do what they are doing without punishing him.
You mean GRZ hasn’t known this all along? The so called World Bank or the IMF are not there to help poor countries you i.d.i.o.t.s! They are there to hold your poor countries for an endless ransom! In simple words, they own your so called countries.
Just shut up KA double pwe just tax the mining companies. Crying over $20m credit. You would think it is a gift. Just increase the mineral royalties to 25%. You are not going to get anything from the mining companies if you focus on corporate tax. You will forever be dribbled. Tulo!
Iwe economist ka kapwepwe, don’t be naive. I surely don’t know how old you are to fail to appreciate that the world bank and the IMF are not a charity organisation. My dear lady, these chaps are thieves that steal in broad day light. Ask your uncle KK, he knows them better.
You see young Kapwepwe, thats why we want proactive and hardworking people in Govt capable of steering this beloved and God blessed country in the right direction. We in Zambia have cried for leaders ready to foster development with locally generated funds.
You talk about conditions attached to the help they render to you, I support them 100%. Contemporarly Zambian leaders can not be entrusted with huge sums of funds without checking. You’re a corrupt clique of 21st leaders. Turn to the Mines Sha!!!!!
There is even a more subtle undesirable element of trying to get IMF/World Bank funding. You usually find that the Country which is seeking the funding takes the best brains in the Country to concentrate on writing project papers for the IMF/World Bank. If all the time and effort of these intelligent local people was spent on developmental projects, poor Countries would make more progress.
You’re a corrupt clique of 21st centuary leaders.
Yaba, 45 years still complaining about IMF, S.T.U.D.I.D double pwe wake up. Stop depending on handouts, read Dambisa Moyo’s book!!! Damn Zambians
The IMF lends money to countries with “conditionalities” that the recipient governments are duty bound to follow. The most severe conditionalities fall on the poverty-stricken Third World Countries
The policy of the IMF is to demand less and less money be spent internally on health care, food and housing for local populations. In most instances this is complied with.
Boo hoo, the IMF won’t give us the money we need unless we meet their conditions blah blah blah
If you had not scrapped the windfall tax, we would not even need the IMF that much. Get to work!
why give comments on the I.M.F mama Kapwepwe? I thought by now you know that Zambia Became a state In the United Captured states of I.M.F (U.C.S.I) the day you allowed it to happen. Come on find better ways of revenue and reduced expenditure especially on the so called ministers and M.Ps allowances.Use the money you should have given Chiluba to the state enhancement projects and then beg from Your Governor I.M.F.Then declare chiluba as a ransom if you don`t pay back. Shame. buy back your own country,
your dear father wote books against captivity.You should have read them. But instead, you chose to read James hardly Chase.These are the results
To borrow Max Nkole’s favourite word: what are you gonna do about it Kapwepwe? Are you gonna shoo away the IMF or are you gonna be a talking head?
What is $20m. You can easily get that from Zambian copper mines. Why chase the wind, just be strong with the mining companies. It’s a shame that you can even cry over $20m when mining houses are making billions of US$ from copper and cobalt.
This kind of leadership is really crap, to say the least. We must be ashamed of being beggars. there’s no respect in beggin and borrowing. A borrowers is a slave to the lender – check the bible. Seek to be independent economically, you poor Zambian economists. Did these people major economics of begging?
poor politico. i would be unhappy too if my bank restricted or took away my credit/overdraft facilities. here’s what i do, i tighten MY belt, to encourage the rest of my crew to save.
unfortunately, politicians and bureaucrats don’t know the discipline required to live-and-die by the bottomline. forget borrowing money from china, just sell zed to the p.r.c (preferably the r.o.c)!!!
i hope peaple are not still brain washed when it comes to the west. WORLD BANK?sounds like the “one WORLD ORDER BANK” to me.these people have never meant gud.their objective is basically to enslave african countries (neo colonization).thats were we are headed.let me give you some advice,KICK OUT IMF AND WORLD BANK out of zambia.we don’t need them.infact they do opposite, instead of helping they destroy.
Mama Kapwepwe has proved to have a good grip on Micro-Macroeconomics and the international liberal political economy manipulations.This the kind of depth and open tact potential future leadership aspirants ought to start showing.Its not enough to bid hundred years ahead of time and belabor to sail on a troubled historic past.Keep on mama Kapwepwe your works have our approval.External dependence syndrome need to be gradually fought with some will.