Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko made the statement during the government conference to discuss interaction with the IMF
Interests of the Belarusian nation must be undoubtedly taken into account in discussions about the new credit program of the International Monetary Fund for Belarus. Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko made the statement during the government conference held on 3 October to discuss interaction with the IMF, BelTA has learned.
The President remarked that the IMF has a standard way of interacting with any country during negotiations on lending and the requirements the IMF presents are generally the same. “I have come to understand precisely what shareholders want, what IMF founders representing the countries, with which negotiations are held, want. In other words, the IMF has a certain policy,” said Alexander Lukashenko. “In the end decisions are made upon recommendations of those, who have more capital in the IMF, those, who own the controlling interest. The USA and the European Union are the dominating shareholders. No IMF decisions have ever been made without them.”
“The requirements [the IMF usually presents] are super liberal. Moreover, in the end these requirements have nothing to do with the policy the president declared during the first presidential elections, possibly the second presidential election and even now,” said the Belarusian leader. “When one reads these requirements, the general theme with regard to social security can be summarized like this: no salary raises, an immediate increase in utility rates and so on. Communists would say that such measures are meant to choke the nation. I don't mean they are trying to choke us. Nobody forces us to take these loans but, unfortunately, this is the formula.”
“I would like to warn those, who are conducting these negotiations: if you are trying to erase everything the nation and the president have done in the last 20 years, you will fail. Don't do it. We have no right to make the Belarusian nation poor,” stressed the head of state.
“I am not saying everything you have brought today fits this negative formula. But I would like to hear you out, would like to hear your motivation,” the President told participants of the meeting.
As an example Alexander Lukashenko mentioned the IMF requirements concerning the policy of managing state-owned property. “I have always said that we are not going to give up on state property if it works fine. Moreover, we will rely on it,” stressed the head of state. “But far from privatizing everything and anything in a certain period of time we are supposed to totally forget about privatization. We are supposed to pass some law and forget all about it.”
“Even if privatization goes wrong, we will not be able to revise the matter ten years from now. Privatized assets will become unchangeable after three years,” noted the President.
