Staff Reporter – The Zimbabwe Daily
Johannesburg, South Africa – The recently unveiled US$4.3 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has created a lot of contention within the South African midst.
Although the loan is aimed at stimulating part of the country’s US$30 billion COVID-19 economic package, many have seen it as a wrong turn by the government.
“We are not in approval of the IMF loan because we look at the history of their loans in Africa with their structural adjustment programs which cripple country’s economies like in the case of Zimbabwe.
These structural adjustment programs also create dictatorships. Another thing, loans of this magnitude tend to spill out to other future generations so this IMF loan is not a victory,” said Alex Mashilo, South African Communist Party (SACP)’s national spokesperson.
The third largest political party in the country, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) said in a statement that this was the “biggest political blunder the ANC has made since 1994.”
Lumkile Mondi a senior lecturer at the School of Economics and Business Science at the University of the Witwatersrand also castigated the move and highlighted that corruption was looming, “the ANC is on a looting spree.”
However, National Treasury director-general Dondo Mogajane, said the loan was going to serve its purpose as they will be keeping a close eye on it.
