EFF statement on the ANC’s decision to support loans from the IMF and World Bank

9 May 2020

The EFF notes and condemns the decision by the ANC to support the government’s initiative to go to the IMF and World Bank. The decision to go to the IMF and World Bank is informed by incompetence, ideological confusion and lack of political will to explore options that will protect South Africa's economic sovereignty. The IMF and World Bank, historically and presently, are not a wise economic option when we can explore other sustainable and economically beneficial ways in which we can finance public expenditure.

The ANC and the Finance Minister Tito Mboweni are disingenuous to claim that there is a way to borrow money from the IMF and World Bank without jeopardising the integrity of domestic policy formulation and promotion of the interests of all. The reality is that, since the advent of democracy, the ruling party has never had any sovereignty over economic policies, in particular monetary and fiscal policies. Instead, the IMF and World Bank through various conduits including training and development of some of the key personnel at the Treasury, have been in charge of South Africa's economic policies.

Furthermore, The Finance Minister insults our intelligence by suggesting that the decision to go to the IMF and the World Bank is not ideological. The manner in which the Finance Minister has attempted to restructure the economy since his appointment has been ideological in all manner and form. The ANC collective has been at the forefront of dispossessing South Africans of their public assets to the benefit of the former Finance Minister's former employer Goldman Sachs, banks, his friends at Bidvest and Imperial, as well as further expansion of neoliberal policies into essential spheres of life such as water and sanitation.

The government's economic responses to Coronavirus have been characterised by incompetence, rhetoric and confusion, including the decision to go to the IMF and World Bank. Initially, the Finance Minister misled the public, stating that the loan from the IMF does not have either conditions or interest. But the truth is that the IMF and the World Bank are not in the business of charity, and are instruments used to continue to recolonise Africa in a new scramble for our natural wealth. The mere fact that we are members of these bodies means little, as we remain impoverished despite all our mineral endowments that continue to enrich western imperial countries with the assistance of parasitic neo-colonial tendencies of the ruling party whose existence is nothing but self-seeking.

The EFF has consistently called for means and ways to source funding which will allow South Africa to reimagine itself, its economy and the future of its people. This call entails not being indebted to the IMF, World Bank, banks and rating agencies as they serve no national interest. Instead of the IMF and World Bank loans, we should look into unclaimed benefits in insurance companies, government reserves, and further monetary instruments including foreign exchange reserves held by the South African Reserve Bank. We reject the selling of our nation into a generational perpetual debt trap and call on a mobilisation by all progressive forces to reclaim our sovereignty.

Issued by Vuyani Pambo, National Spokesperson, 9 May 2020