When the IMF or World Bank gives loans to a third world country, they force these countries to do what they call ‘Structural Adjustment Programs’ (SAPs). This is a fancy term and deliberately so to make sure it will take forever for the average citizen to really grasp its purpose. These loans come with predatory strings attached. That is why Gamtel is laying off 600 staff. Without a shred of mercy, they call such lay-offs “structural adjustment.” We will welcome articles from Gambian economists to elaborate on this.
To simplify, structural adjustment programs force a country to sell its key national structures or privatize them to the detriment of its citizens. Further, these programs, in other words mean opening up a third world country’s key assets to multi-nationals or multi-national corporations to acquire them.
Those multi-national corporations work with the IMF and World Bank to get the money to buy out third world property and very important national assets. They have a peculiar relationship to target and impoverish third world countries while making money on interest. Worse, a significant chunk of each IMF or World bank loan goes to hidden fees before reaching intended destinations which most citizens don’t know.
In fact, some loans specify which foreign companies will be awarded contracts for third world countries’ government projects. In other words, the same money coming as a loan goes back to foreign multinational corporations. And the IMF and World Bank also dictate how a third world country can’t spend these loans on building robust electricity infrastructure or hospitals.
Why will a lender condition a borrower if that lender is really interested in the prosperity of that poor nation? Also, the IMF and World Bank also decide what those third world countries would spend the loans on—loans we borrow with predatory interest rates. Can you see why we have been taking loans for the last century and we are still so impoverished?
Now, the Barrow administration is another catalyst to this problem. We published here before that when Jammeh was leaving, Gambia’s total debt was around $575 million. Barrow added an extra $1.6 billion to that. Jawara incurred a little over $420 million by 1994. You can imagine how this current administration is ruining Gambia and lives of its already poor citizens.
Both Jawara and Jammeh never privatized Gamtel, GPA, and many other parastatals. Of course, Barrow would comply with the borrowers just to get the money. Does he really care about putting such huge loans with cut-throat interest rates to any good use? No, they rather live large at our expense. But we still have to pay both princcipal and interest, and for any Gambian above thirty-five, perhaps for the rest of lives!
All of Africa should be following Ibrahim Traore and Burkina Faso ,he’ll show how to turn a Country round in 3 yrs