SOUTH AFRICA

R70 billion IMF loan: SA’s noose or lifeline?

The $4.3 billion loan South Africa has received from the International Monetary Fund is unnecessary, with economist, Patrick Bond, charging that the loan conditions could lead to crippling budgetary cuts, which would be detrimental to the poor. A colleague, however, disagrees, saying the loan, which translates to about R70 billion, is much needed but also a test of whether government could be trusted with this kind of money again in future. Bond has blasted the justification that the emergency financing will help fill the urgent country’s Balance-of-Payments (BOP) as a result of the pandemic as “totally nonsensical,” saying: “There’s actually…

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