Suchergebnisse

A critical account of the SE devastation wrought by the recent intervention of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Sierra Leone. As a result of two decades of mismanagement & theft perpetrated by the regime of President Siaka Stevens & a small group of wealthy diamond dealers & merchants, the national debt of Sierra Leone had by July 1986 reached crisis proportions. In order to qualify for a modest standby loan & Structural Adjustment Facility, plus the IMF imprimatur that would release further commercial lending, the new government of President Momoh has had to agree to a set of liberalization policies -- including an effective devaluation of the currency by 80% in six months & withdrawal of subsidies on rice & petrol -- that have caused immediate starvation & economic chaos. Besides making the masses pay for the debts incurred by the rich, the IMF textbook economic policies are demonstrated to be wholly unsuitable in small developing countries. Two alternative policies are briefly indicated. 2 Tables. AA

A survey of Kano‐based industries affected by the indigenisation programme reveals a very high concentration of indigenous equity ownership, and partly because of this, sheds doubts on the success of the programme to achieve its stated objective: independent capitalist development. Such an objective is furthermore thought to be an unlikely outcome because of the emerging patterns of collaboration between the new industrial (though still largely mercantile oriented) elite and the foreign owners of capital who compensate for their loss of direct economic control through increased technological control. Such increased technological control encourages also a pattern of production unlikely to expand the labour absorption rate of industry.