The International Currency Fund (ICF) will be able to provide Armenia with yet another 3.28 million SDR (approximately 4.9 million dollars) credit loan. This loan, which the ICF provides to poor countries, is aimed towards economic development, social and structural reforms and has a goal to lower the level of poverty in the country. It is worth mentioning that the credits of the loan are 5% each year and redeeming the loan will begin 10 years later. The ICF used to give loans for structural reforms to Armenia a couple of years ago, but times are changing and so is the “loan model”. The World Bank, as well as the ICF, has started to give loans to Armenia and calls it “overcoming poverty”. This is how the millions of dollars started flowing to Armenia. What’s interesting is that the authorities still don’t confess the truth even after getting the money. Armenia continues to be the poor country to which international organizations provide “privileges”. After World War II, more and more large international organizations started to come into the light and it’s no wonder that some international activists said “no” to them. Those organizations are founded by the great powers of the world and are controlled by them too. It’s hard to say what their intentions are, but one thing is for sure: they don’t have any goals to protect the interests of poor countries like Armenia and provide large amounts of money with small interest rates.
Anyway, let’s get back to the ICF “poverty” three-year loan program. The loan was confirmed by the ICF executive council on May 25 of last year. The entire sum of the program makes up 23 million SDR (approximately 34.2 million dollars). A year ago, one of the directors of the organization, Augustine Karstens said the following about the program:
“Armenia’s economy has remained stable in 2004 and the beginning of 2005. The real GDP has rose, agriculture and construction have “boomed”, inflation has gone down and the Armenian dram is still in the process of evaluation. The Central Bank of Armenia continues to focus on keeping the stability of prices and keep the exchange rate regime the same…”
These were some of the “positive remarks” made about our country. After this, we have to ask the international organizations (in particular the ICF): why is Armenia still in poverty? This question has been asked many times to the Armenian representatives of the organizations, but they always say that Armenia is not poor, so they won’t feel bad. Recently, during an interview with “168 Hours”, the ICF constant representative in Armenia James Makyu gave the following evaluation of the country’s economic development
“Everything is going smoothly. The economic growth and inflation rates are satisfactory and poverty is reducing. I don’t think we have any problems regarding this.”
Why are they hiding the truth? The answer to this question could be dangerous for the country and the future generations.
Fine, but where does the money go? What is the money being used for? “168 Hours” found out from the press department of the Ministry of Finances and Economy that the Armenian branch of the ICF can give us more details about that. The ICF Armenian branch workers told us that “whatever is accessible to the media can be found on our website”. After checking out the website, we realized that not everything is accessible to the presses. According to the press department of the president of Armenia, President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan and Minister of Finances Vartan Khachatryan recently discussed issues concerning the collaboration with international financing organizations during their meeting. The minister said that this year, for the first time ever, Armenia’s projects presented to the ICF have not been approved by the director’s council, but rather as a question and answer, which means that the projects will be implemented “without any problems”. This shows us that the ICF has started to not care about how the loan is spent; no matter what, it will receive its interest rates.