274/YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE!
SAPs aim to open up the PNG economy to exploitation at the
hands of multinational corporations.
1995 Washington, DC. The IMF finally sets up an independent
review unit to oversee its evaluations of the economic
conditions in member-countries. It does so in response to
criticism in the Whittome Report that it had been unable to
foresee the crisis of the Mexican peso in its 1994 economic
report on the country. The original analysis had contained
warnings concerning a situation of 'quasi-crisis', but the
government persuaded IMF officials to water down the
report. Since then, the World Bank and the Inter-American
Development Bank have spent more than S2 billion dollars
to get Mexico's private banks back on their feet.
1995 Nepal. The Bank agrees to withdraw financing from the
Arun dam after Nepalese citizens groups take their case to the
Independent Inspection Council. The Bank president
recognises that the Arun dam is not the kind of project Nepal
most needs, and promises to work on obtaining financing for
alternative projects drawn up by NGOs.
1996 Jordan. Riots erupt in response to the 200 per cent increase
in the prices of basic goods that follows SAP-inspired subsidy
cuts.
1996 Washington, DC. The Bank and the IMF launch an
initiative for the Severely Indebted Low-Income Countries
(SILICs), to make debt repayment more 'bearable' (Toussaint,
1997c). The initiative does not seek to serve the needs of the
populations of the countries in question, but rather to ensure
the smooth flow of debt-servicing payments.
1997 Washington, DC. The Bank creates the Structural
Adjustment Participatory Review Initiative (SAPRI) to
involve NGOs in its SAP review process, thereby taking the
sting out of their criticisms. According to the Bank, 47 per
cent of its projects have NGO participation, while 72 Bank
missions maintain regular contact with local NGOs (1997
Annual Report). Unfortunately, this has not led to a change
in the Bank's macroeconomic orientations. The Bank says
that 29 per cent of its loans targeted the poor in 1997, as
opposed to 32 per cent in 1996. This is a drop of nearly 10
per cent of the share of loans going to the poor.