Vicious cycle

Vicious cycle

With its huge amount of foreign debt, Indonesia is caught in a vicious cycle. Surprisingly, the government is apparently happy about this, with its request for new debts and seeking the rescheduling of old debts.

However, Indonesia is not listed among the poorest countries in the world. This means that the request to reschedule the debts was turned down.

The country finds itself in a major quandary because it is impossible to repay these massive debts with the state budget. In such a situation the final option is not to pay the debts.

The foreign debts are a multilateral matter, involving the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank. These three institutions have loaned money to the country in the name of development, and plunged Indonesia into structural dependence on foreign debts.

Therefore, foreign debts are now a matter of political choice rather than an economic matter.

Is it proper for the government to seek debt rescheduling or decide not to pay the debts, while many government officials are well off and 30 percent of the state budget is leaked and corruption is rampant?

The vicious cycle must end. The country can stand firmly without foreign debts if corruption is eliminated and our natural resources are properly managed for the sake of people's prosperity.

-- Media Indonesia, Jakarta