ICP
Asks IMF of
Impact of War on Yemen on
Saudi Economy, Callen Notes
Military Overspending
By Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS,
January 17 – When the
International Monetary Fund's
Tim Calen took questions about
Saudi Arabia's economy on
January 17, Inner City Press
asked him:
"What has been
the impact of the Saudi-led
Coalition's Yemen campaign on
the Saudi economy, and what is
the IMF's projection?"
IMF Senior
Communications Officer Wafa
Amr read out the question,
between oil-heavy Reuters and
the Wall Street Journal, and
Callen diplomatically said
that the Saudi budget document
published at the end of 2016
showed military over-spending.
Tweeted
video here.
Callen
said he doesn't have the
information to link that to
the military campaign against
Yemen. But what else would it
be?
On January
12 with IMF spokesman Gerry
Rice held a on- and off-line
press briefing, the first one
in more than a month, Inner
City Press submitted questions
about Yemen, Chad, Sri Lanka,
Mozambique and structural
adjustment, as well as asking
for updates on South Sudan and
Burundi.
Now on
January 13 there is this, on
Yemen, to Inner City Press
from an IMF spokesperson:
"The humanitarian
and economic fallout from
conflict is devastating; the
conflict has weakened
significantly economic
activity, destroyed
infrastructure, and
constricted availability of
basic goods and services. We
continue to work with
international partners and
donors to help assure the
availability of basic food and
to facilitate resuming payment
of civil servants as well as
financial support to the
poorest. The IMF stands
ready to re-engage as soon as
the conflict is resolved to
help restore macro stability,
rebuild institutional
capacity, and jump-start
growth."
It's said
that UN enovy Ismail Ould
Cheikh Ahmed met with Yemen's
Central Bank Governor... in
Saudi Arabia.
The
IMF has, a day later, not yet
answered questions on Chad or
Mozambique. Inner City Press
has asked:
In Mozambique it
has been suggested that the
government could simply not
recognize the guarantees for
the $2 billion “secret” debt
that would be enough to
“reduce the total foreign debt
enough to allow negotiation
with the IMF.” What is the
IMF's response?
“MF-led
structural adjustment reforms
increase protest risks in
Chad” - what is the IMF's
response?
In Sri
Lanka, weeks after the
IMF indicated the country's
foreign reserves were below
comfortable levels the
government now plans to try to
raise $1.5 billion through a
domestic bond sale. Does the
IMF think this is a good move?
On IMF conditions
reducing health care spending,
the Universities of Cambridge,
Oxford and the London School
of Hygiene & Tropical
Medicine “found that for every
additional IMF condition that
is 'binding' - i.e. failure to
implement means automatic loan
suspension - government health
expenditure per capita in the
region is reduced by around
0.25%.” What is the IMF's
response?
Well, what is
it? Rice on January 12
said the IMF's Cyprus resident
representative is at the UN's
Geneva talks, and previewed a
presentation by David Lipton on
"Africa," and a trip there by
Christine Lagarde, including to
the Central African Republic,
locus of French impunity. Watch
this site.
***
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