NGO Angered by IMF's
Stonewalling
Friends of the Earth Slovakia,
(FoE-S) in the past six months, has
experienced first hand the lack of
transparency embedded in the operations
of the International Monetary Fund
(IMF). The denial of access to
information and their apparent
contradictions on policy undermines the
IMF's credibility as a democratically
accountable institution.
Since April 25 2000, FoE-S has been
contacting the IMF's External Relations
Department asking for information
regarding the IMF's activities in
Slovakia (and former Czechoslovakia)
over the past ten years. Yet, to date,
they have not received any of the
requested documents from the
institution.
While pursuing this matter with IMF
officials at an IMF Seminar for NGOs in
Vienna in mid-July, FoE-S was told that
the requested documents were lost by
the IMF, but that attempts to locate
them would continue. During the
seminar, non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) from Central and Eastern Europe
also insisted that the IMF develop a
policy on access to information that
would be legally binding and
enforceable. This became the most
contentious issue of the seminar as IMF
officials instead pushed for a
voluntary system based on the IMF's
good-will.
The IMF's good-will has been called
into question, however, with its
apparent contradictions when dealing
with the request of FoE-S. During the
nearly six months of communication
regarding the requested documents, IMF
officials have given contradictory
information about which documents are
publicly available and which are not.
Despite the IMF's insistence that many
of the documents are, in fact,
available to the public, FoE-S has yet
to receive any of them from the
IMF.
In July, FoE-S received direct
assurance from prime minister Mikulas
Dzurinda that his office would provide
all relevant IMF documents related to
Slovakia in a complete form and indeed,
a few documents were soon forwarded to
FoE-S by the office of the prime
minister. Upon further search, however,
the Slovak government discovered that
they, themselves, do not possess the
requested documents in their files and
moreover, that officials at the finance
ministry wanted to review them all
before release . On September 3, 2000,
FoE-S was informed by the government
that the IMF had stated to the finance
ministry that some of the requested
documents were considered confidential
and, therefore, it seems that they will
not be released as the ministry and
government had agreed to do.
Quote:
"During the past year the IMF has
been making a lot of statements about
its improved transparency and desire to
reform, but the perspective from
Slovakia is that the IMF is only taking
cosmetic steps in an attempt to appease
protesters who will be coming to
Prague" said Juraj Zamkovsky, chairman
of Friends of the Earth Slovakia.
For more information call:
Ryan Hunter
Center for Environmental Public
Advocacy (CEPA)
Ponicka Huta 65
976 33 Poniky
Slovak Republic
Tel/Fax:+421-88-4193324
E-mail:
hunter@changenet.sk
Web:hhtp://www.changenet.sk/foe/ge
www.bankwatch.org
Center for Environmental Public
Advocacy (CEPA) is a civic association
based in Ponicka Huta, Central
Slovakia. It focusses on the societal
and environmental consequences of
economic development, the culture of
decision-making, human rights
protection and reform of the water
management system in Slovakia. CEPA is
one of the founding members of the
Central and Eastern European Bankwatch
Network which monitors the policies of
international financial institutions
(IFIs) in post-communist countries and
fights for democratic participation of
citizens in IFIs decision-making
related to the region. Since 1997, CEPA
has become a part of the Environmental
Law Alliance Worldwide, a global
network of public interest lawyers.
CEPA initiated the establishment of
Friends of the Earth - Slovakia, an
association of civic NGOs which was, in
late 1997, adopted into Friends of the
Earth International, a federation of
NGOs active in 63 countries world
wide.
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