The news of the resignation of the immensely popular and beloved and successful national coach of Suriname Dean Gorre hits, in society, like a bomb, but we will come back to that next time as the disappointment, the anger and also the feeling of helplessness and despair at this little land, probably misruler-cursed, has subsided. Today we will talk about the muddled IMF story being sold by a finance minister. Governments in Suriname have more often tended to underestimate the job of Minister of Finance. Because Suriname is small and the economy small, people tend to compare the state household with a simple business, but that is the greatest folly that exists in the administrative world. An average minister of finance must have a solid degree in general economics, or must have had to deal with the ‘inbere’ of the state household for years with another academic economic discipline. Balancing income and expenditure seems to be all that matters, but it is folly to take that simplistic approach. The dynamics of public finances are different from that of a company. Public finances are linked to the State and the sovereign state operates in the midst of treaties, economic blocs and the international financial system in which more powerful countries operate and in the midst of blacklists and economic blockades and sanctions. The reason for all this is the recent announcements made by the Minister of Finance with regard to the IMF. A press release of 29 July 2021 from the IMF recently made it clear that the IMF is far from finished providing ‘financial support’ (extended fund facility) to the bankrupt Surinamese government. In the press release it is announced that internally within the IMF it has been reported that, against the background of the difficult situation that this government has inherited, the government has taken steps in the past period and all the ‘prior actions’ that were agreed in April in the staff-level agreement. Everything would be embedded in the recently approved government budget including increased spending on social security, fiscal sustainability, exchange rate controls, monetary policy framework to control exchange rates, elimination of monetary financing and the phasing out of power subsidies. Now the IMF says that nevertheless Suriname’s creditors also have a major role to play before the IMF steps in. The ‘financing assurances’ must come from those creditors and the IMF is looking forward to these ‘guarantees’ from these capital providers with which Suriname already has loans. The IMF hopes that those guarantees will come from the creditors (Oppenheimer, China and India) and that these are parties that live in uncertainty, because the Surinamese government, which is teetering on the abyss and cannot pay debts, has even fallen into a state of default and has been downgraded to bankruptcy by credit rankings. In particular, there is fear among insiders that it will be China that will be difficult. We take you back to the visit of Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State, to Suriname. In this country, Pompeo has insulted the Chinese, it seems as if he had come to Suriname for that. That has angered the Chinese, and they have made it official. The new government has made a geopolitical mistake by running after the USA and perhaps the Netherlands with open eyes. The path of China has been let go and the Chinese are aware of that. Current projects have also been put at risk. It is clear: you cannot expect a cent from the American government as a Surinamese government. They will only give aid in the form of humanitarian assistance in the event of calamities, that’s always been the case and still is. The USA does not come with cash, China does and then they ask fewer questions than the Americans. When we think of the IMF, we think of the USA. They have demands and with that they kill the government and the population and we see that again. Remarkably, we could have easily obtained the USD 600 million that we are all about now from China. And that should be known geopolitically on Buza/Bibis and on Finance. It is clear that we should never, ever have gone to the IMF. The government has therefore followed incorrect geopolitical and financial advice, probably from people who do not live in the country of Suriname or not long enough. And one thing must be clear, the financial picture, so where and from whom do you get money, there is always a geopolitical map. The IMF debacle continues, in the meantime the financial picture of Suriname, in our own words, would no longer be as acute and desperate as a few months ago, because there is already talk of a de facto surplus of one and a half billion (USD 71.5 million ) on the current account.
