“There’s nothing like unrequited love to take all the flavour out of a peanut butter sandwich…”
This week’s Ramble is attempting to type with a cat on the keyboard. It’s the second biggest challenge of the day.
The biggest was preventing myself from physically assaulting a member of the IMF mission this morning. I know the Weekly Ramble is in danger of becoming Weekly Rant, but I really need to get this off my chest. Our distinguished colleagues from the Fund seem to believe that anyone who doesn’t work for them has an understanding of the economy gleaned from the Gospel According to Peanuts. This morning I attended a meeting with my Assistant Director where the most recent IMF mission to Malawi presented the findings of their work with the Reserve Bank of Malawi. As tempted as I am to betray the official secrets act (if indeed we have one) and reveal the content of the meeting, I shall bite my tongue. Essentially, the IMF are all but demanding that we take a very controversial action designed to satisfy their free-market ethos because, as the leader of the mission told our Principal Secretary, ‘until you do this, industry in Malawi won’t be able to grow. And we don’t want that, do we?’ If I was in PS’ seat I would have slapped the beard off the condescending hyena’s face, but he settled for patiently explaining that, yes, we do want industry in Malawi to grow, but our concern right now is the fact that the vast majority of the country is still at risk of famine and diseases related to undernutrition. Taking the actions the IMF suggested would make it more expensive for these people to purchase food. And as much as industry matters, that is what we really want to avoid.
Of course the Fund doesn’t really think about all that. For them the be-all and end-all of development is the achievement of macroeconomic stability, i.e. low spending and low taxation. No matter how much you explain that, actually, you need to spend to increase agricultural and indeed industrial productivity, how you need to nurture these industries, they stubbornly refuse to budge from that basic position. When the leader of the mission left the room one of his colleagues, who only recently joined the Fund from the private sector, acknowledged that our position was a perfectly reasonable one. If I wasn’t such a cynic I’d go so far as to say he was implying that he wouldn’t take the Fund’s advice if he was in our shoes. But no. They’re not human, are they?
* * *
Lilongwe is an amazing city. Just the other night, driving home with Cantona, we saw an impala running across the road in front of Capital Hill. A more pleasant surprise than the snake in Snowball’s driveway.
* * *
I have a moral dilemma, and any advice would be muchly appreciated. I recently found out that a friend of Cantona’s (nom de blog, Hobbes, mainly because I wanted to link that page) is going be out of a job soon. He’s a fantastic guy: honest, hard-working, and endlessly good natured. He’s going to lose his job because his employer is seeking greener pastures, but told me this in the strictest confidence (yes, yes I know, I am fully aware of the irony of publishing the information on the internet). This person has begged me not to let this information out among our small circle of friends, and would never forgive me if I broke this promise (she doesn’t know about the blog. So lets keep it quiet, eh?). Unfortunately, one of the people I’ve been explicitly requested not to tell is the only person I know who can find Hobbes a new job. Hobbes comes from a really tough background, and he’s incredibly honest. He recently turned down a better paying job out of loyalty to his current employer. And to top it all off, his wife is ill.
What do I do?
The biggest was preventing myself from physically assaulting a member of the IMF mission this morning. I know the Weekly Ramble is in danger of becoming Weekly Rant, but I really need to get this off my chest. Our distinguished colleagues from the Fund seem to believe that anyone who doesn’t work for them has an understanding of the economy gleaned from the Gospel According to Peanuts. This morning I attended a meeting with my Assistant Director where the most recent IMF mission to Malawi presented the findings of their work with the Reserve Bank of Malawi. As tempted as I am to betray the official secrets act (if indeed we have one) and reveal the content of the meeting, I shall bite my tongue. Essentially, the IMF are all but demanding that we take a very controversial action designed to satisfy their free-market ethos because, as the leader of the mission told our Principal Secretary, ‘until you do this, industry in Malawi won’t be able to grow. And we don’t want that, do we?’ If I was in PS’ seat I would have slapped the beard off the condescending hyena’s face, but he settled for patiently explaining that, yes, we do want industry in Malawi to grow, but our concern right now is the fact that the vast majority of the country is still at risk of famine and diseases related to undernutrition. Taking the actions the IMF suggested would make it more expensive for these people to purchase food. And as much as industry matters, that is what we really want to avoid.
Of course the Fund doesn’t really think about all that. For them the be-all and end-all of development is the achievement of macroeconomic stability, i.e. low spending and low taxation. No matter how much you explain that, actually, you need to spend to increase agricultural and indeed industrial productivity, how you need to nurture these industries, they stubbornly refuse to budge from that basic position. When the leader of the mission left the room one of his colleagues, who only recently joined the Fund from the private sector, acknowledged that our position was a perfectly reasonable one. If I wasn’t such a cynic I’d go so far as to say he was implying that he wouldn’t take the Fund’s advice if he was in our shoes. But no. They’re not human, are they?
* * *
Lilongwe is an amazing city. Just the other night, driving home with Cantona, we saw an impala running across the road in front of Capital Hill. A more pleasant surprise than the snake in Snowball’s driveway.
* * *
I have a moral dilemma, and any advice would be muchly appreciated. I recently found out that a friend of Cantona’s (nom de blog, Hobbes, mainly because I wanted to link that page) is going be out of a job soon. He’s a fantastic guy: honest, hard-working, and endlessly good natured. He’s going to lose his job because his employer is seeking greener pastures, but told me this in the strictest confidence (yes, yes I know, I am fully aware of the irony of publishing the information on the internet). This person has begged me not to let this information out among our small circle of friends, and would never forgive me if I broke this promise (she doesn’t know about the blog. So lets keep it quiet, eh?). Unfortunately, one of the people I’ve been explicitly requested not to tell is the only person I know who can find Hobbes a new job. Hobbes comes from a really tough background, and he’s incredibly honest. He recently turned down a better paying job out of loyalty to his current employer. And to top it all off, his wife is ill.
What do I do?
posted by the Maradona of Malawi at 6:10 PM
