National Assembly speaker Dr Patrick Herminie has commended the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for changing from an “impoverishing body” to a supportive one.

He told members of the assembly (MNA) that he once wrote an essay criticising the IMF for transferring wealth from the poor to the rich.

“As a young postgraduate student at Leeds University, in an essay on the finances of healthcare, I lambasted the IMF and its structural adjustment programme for its failure to alleviate poverty and for compounding an already deep health crisis in the Third World,” he told the MNAs at a symposium organised for them by the IMF at the Le Méridien Barbarons hotel.

“I said then that the IMF and other Bretton Woods institutions, through their debt servicing policy and rigid conditions for bailing out, have achieved what God himself could not achieve, namely to flow liquidity upwards from South to North, with the latter becoming richer and former poorer.”
Dr Herminie saluted the organisation “for having undergone a change that helps it recognise the specificities of a small island state”.

And he urged the MNAs to become more familiar with Seychelles’ economic programme, whose launch they supported.

“The new approach by the IMF is a historical paradigm shift that bestows on us the additional need to change our very own mindset, to change our political modus operandi from being a proponent of welfarism to a fervent promoter of entrepreneurship,” he said.

“It will enable us to take better-informed decisions, to take part in more fruitful discussions and to exercise more effective oversight, thus assuring greater accountability by the executive.

“Indeed, this symposium is very much in line with our recently declared objective of moving on from just being a deliberative assembly to a collaborative one.”

He said the economic reforms are the boldest programme of change ever carried out in this country “and I must admit I am impressed with the outcomes of the reforms”.

“If today we are gathered here to take stock of the successes of the reform programme launched in November 2008, we cannot forget the central role played by the National Assembly,” added Dr Herminie.

“The support rendered by our institution was instrumental in ensuring that the right legal frameworks were established on time for the reform to be effected. I must commend the honourable members of the National Assembly for the vision they displayed, for their boldness, their political astuteness and for their steadfastness where many others would have wavered.

“The IMF programme was always fraught with risks and adverse effects on a population so used to the comfort of a welfare state.

“We all knew that the reforms were going to have widespread and cross-cutting consequences for all sections of our population. The task of confronting the electorate on the initial pains emanating from the reforms was always meant to be daunting.

“But I was happy to note that both sides of the House realised right from the outset that there cannot be any gain without pain.

“From the floating of the rupee and a reduction in the public sector workforce to the tax reforms, all of which required audacious legislative changes, honourable members never shied away from their responsibilities in ensuring that no brake is applied on this fast-moving locomotive locally known as the IMF reform programme.”

Vice-President Danny Faure – who is also the Minister for Finance – added his commendation of the MNAs for supporting the reforms.

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