ANC STATEMENT ON THE $2 BILLION LOAN TO IMF

The African National Congress welcomes the decision of the South African government to loan the IMF $ 2 billion to the Crisis Fund created by IMFas part of an initiative to prevent global economic crisis that is threatening the world economy. 

We believe that South Africa as a member of both the United Nations and the G20 has an obligation to join hands with the rest of the world in averting a repeat of the last global economic melt down in the 2008-2010.  Our contribution together with the rest of the world countries will enable the IMF to intervene decisively using, the Crisis Fund that has been established, in the imminent threat to the world economy.

We are all aware that when the world economy collapsed, triggered by the faltering of the American economy, it's impact engulfed the entire global economy and spurred no single country from its impact including South Africa.  As a result of the last wold economic melt down, South Africa lost 1 million jobs, our job creation forecast had to be reviewed downwards and our economic growth trajectory had to be equally revised downward. It is therefore in our national interest that we invest in this initiative to prevent future reoccurrence.

We believe that while this is an obligation confronting the world economy's ills, it is also a secured investment owing to the credibility of the IMF and the interest it will earn for South Africa. This is an important point to make that this is not a donations as developing countries are not expected to donate to the IMF and therefore this remains a loan to be repaid to South  Africa and the South African people as a whole.

As South Africa we cannot only be posturing on issues of world economy but we need to take our place fully and practically,  both in terms of policy direction, governance and active interventions. South Africa remains part of the developing nations' voice within world governance fora and therefore must take a lead amongst its peers in terms of influencing the future of the world economy.

We believe that as we want to transform the world multilateral fora including the IMF, WTO and the United Nations, we cannot do so on the basis of claiming "poverty". Our working together with the world to intervene in future economic crisis will put us, as a country, in a better position to advance our transformation objectives within the international community.

Statement issued by Jackson Mthembu, ANC national spokesperson, June 20 2012 

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