Stop Mortgaging Africa’s Future With ‘Death Trap’ IMF, World Bank Loans – Malema Warns Leaders
South African opposition leader, Julius Malema, has told the continent leaders that loans from Brentwood organisations and others can mortgage the future of the continent.
Malema warned that taking such loans, which he described as “a debt trap,” can undermine Africa.
The President of South Africa’s Economic Freedom Fighters spoke on Sunday in Enugu as a keynote speaker during the opening ceremony of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) Annual General Conference.
OSUN DEFENDER reports that most African countries have, over the decades, resorted to taking loans from the brettonwood institutions, on long-term conditions, which in turn affect the economies of the countries, and plunge them into more hardship.
Malema’s comments is also coming at a time when many Nigerians have carpeted the Bola Tinubu administration for obtaining credit facilities, a development that has increased the country’s debt burden.
While addressing the gathering, the opposition leader said, “The debt trap of Africa to our foreign colonisers must be stopped, and that begins by regulating these loans that our leaders commit future generations to, because they will not be there when the colonisers come to collect”.
The outspoken activist said the South African parliament is making a move to checkmate loans from these institutions.
He said, “The Public Finance Management Amendment Bill will in South Africa deal with a problem facing the whole continent, and that is the unregulated borrowing of money by our governments from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
“This bill, which we have introduced as the EFF, will require that the National Treasury in South Africa first seek approval from Parliament to source foreign loans and establish transparency regarding such loans and their conditionalities,” the EFF leader said.
He noted that he believed that the continent’s “salvation” lies within and will not “come from Washington, London, Brussels, or Beijing.
“Our salvation lies here, in Lagos and Johannesburg, in Abuja and Pretoria, in the hands of Africans who refuse to be divided,” the firebrand South African politician told the thousands of lawyers and other dignitaries at the event.”
Olamilekan Adigun is a graduate of Mass Communication with years of experience in journalism embedded in uncovering human interest stories. He also prioritises accuracy and factual reportage of issues.
