Speaker criticises Bretton Woods institutions

THE Bretton Woods institutions have been slammed for punishing African countries that seek to control and exploit their natural resources for the benefit of their nationals.

Speaker of the National Assembly Advocate Jacob Mudenda said made his complaint known while addressing the ongoing inaugural Conference of Speakers and Heads of Parliaments in Africa that ended in Nigeria yesterday.

“The one area which we need to be open about is the attitude of the World Bank or Bretton Woods institutions group, including IMF,” he said.

“Where a country in Africa would like to enhance its footprint in terms of controlling its resources, quite often such a country gets punished.

“For example, in Zimbabwe, we decided that land is the primary resource for the development of any country. We said land must belong to the people of Zimbabwe, the moment we did that we were punished and put under sanctions.

“These international organisations including cut off lines of credit, working together with European countries.”

Adv Mudenda said as a result of the sanctions, Zimbabwe was now unable to access lines of credit.

Zimbabwe has been under sanctions for two decades following the adoption of the fast track land reform after Britain reneged on its obligations to fund the programme to address land ownership imbalances between the minority whites and indigenous populace.

Adv Mudenda said multilateral institutions insist on taking resources without value addition and beneficiation in the country of origin in Africa.

“The moment you put laws to say beneficiate minerals locally, you are punished,” he said.

Turning to the effects of Covid-19, Adv Mudenda said there was need for African countries to come up with a plan to stimulate their economies after they were ravaged by the pandemic.

“On the question of debt relief, after World War 2, when European countries’ economies were in tatters, financial institutions set up a ‘’Marshal Plan’’, in order to stimulate economies that had just come out of the war,” he said.

“Resultantly, accelerated industrialisation of these economies happened. To that extent, Africa should have such a Marshal Plan set up as African countries took a severe battering courtesy of the Covid-19.”