Never become an IMF plaything

Never become an IMF plaything

From Merdeka

Several months before his resignation, former president Soeharto signed an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Rumors have it that he did so without even deigning to discuss it first with either the House of Representatives or any of his Cabinet ministers. The fact is, this agreement has leashed Indonesia to certain obligations:

1. We have been promised a loan which may be repaid over a very long period.

2. The strings attached to the extension of this loan are obviously a great insult to a sovereign state:

a. IMF supervision in Indonesia's monetary policies;

b. scrapping of subsidies for the people;

c. privatization of state-owned enterprises;

d. restructuring (euphemism for major overhaul) of the Indonesian banking system;

e. private banks being permitted to expand their operations into district areas.

Lately, there has also been a request that foreign investors should be allowed to control 99 percent (no longer 50 percent or 60 percent) of Indonesian private bank shares.

Privatization will allow foreign investors to control our state-owned enterprises. Poland is an excellent example in this regard. Soros once bought a Polish state-owned steel mill for a very low price. Then he sold it to an Italian investor at a much higher price. Can Poland ever exercise its control again over this steel mill?

Unless the government acts cautiously, foreign private banks will soon gain control over our government banks. Once this happens, our private banks will never be free from foreign control. Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia has always refused to request aid from the IMF -- perhaps because he knows full well the strings that the IMF would attach to the loan.

Remember our first president Sukarno? He always called on our people to be self-reliant. Unfortunately our fate is now in the hands of the IMF and Coordinating Minister for Economy, Finance and Industry Ginandjar Kartasasmita. Our hope is that Ginandjar will be smart enough in negotiating with the IMF to make sure that the interests of the Indonesian people and state will not be harmed.

Let us not become international pariahs that foreign capitalists can have fun playing with. Let's not allow the old adage "Like rats dying in a rice granary" translate itself into reality.

MRS. IRANA

Jakarta