By
Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, August 28 -- The International Monetary Fund is working on
the ebola crisis with the government of Liberia, Sierra Leone and
Guinea, spokesperson Gerry Rice answered Inner City Press at the
IMF's embargoed briefing on August 28.
While
most questions concerned IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde
being under investigation -- she will brief the IMF Board “very
soon,” Rice said, calling it “highly unlikely” it would be on
August 29 along with the Board's meeting on Ukraine -- Inner City
Press also asked about Yemen, Ghana, Pakistan -- and ebola, IMF transcript here:
“Has
the IMF produced any estimates of the impact of the ebola crisis? Any
IMF responses to it?”
Rice
read out the question, then said that ebola's "acute impacts" are
“macro-economic” and social, hitting three “already fragile”
countries (Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone). He said "growth is likely to
slow sharply in all three cases" and significant financial needs will rise: "increased
poverty and food insecurity" and impacts on employment in the key agricultural sector.
Rice concluded, "We are actively working with all three countries to prepare... additional financing that may be required."
On
Pakistan, Inner City Press has asked “former finance minister Hafiz
Pasha has said, 'This is not the time for the IMF to push for an
increase in power prices as people are talking about civil
disobedience and agitating against the government on the streets.'
What is the IMF's response?”
Rice
said that the fourth review of Pakistan continued, albeit in Dubai
and now by video-conference from Washington.
On
Ghana, Inner City Press had asked “Convention People’s Party
chair Samia Nkrumah has said, 'It will be erroneous to accept the
fact that IMF conditionalities could not be rejected since in 1965,
Ghana, under the First President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, rejected the
proposal of the IMF when they recommended the sale of national assets
such as factories in exchange for a loan.' What is the IMF's
response?”
Rice
said that the IMF team will be in Accra in September. On Yemen Inner
City Press had asked, “it is reported that the Ministry of Planning
and International Cooperation estimates that cutting fuel subsidies
could lead to an additional 500,000 Yemenis falling under the poverty
line. What is the IMF's response to that, and to current protests of
the cut in subsidies?” Rice described the request for a program.
On
Lagarde, Rice said there will be a board briefing - Brazil's rep has
called it a serious matter - but that he could predict nothing about
what would happen. Nor about Ukraie, on which Inner City Press asked:
"On Ukraine, does the IMF agree with the view that 'as
capital flight has accelerated, the country's official international
reserves have been depleted and the Ukrainian currency now has
depreciated by more than 30 percent since the start of the year. This
has brought the currency to a level that the IMF itself considers to be
dangerous for the solvency of the Ukrainian banking system” and that “it
now appears that Ukraine's GDP will decline by more of the order of 10
percent in 2014 rather than by the 5 percent that initially had been
assumed in the IMF program'?"
The IMF Board meets on August 29. Watch this site.
