South Africa’s request for a US$750 million development loan from the World Bank has been approved by the Breton Woods institution and at the same time rejected by the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters because “the country can raise its own funding,” APA learnt on Sunday.
National Treasury said the multimillion loan would support the government’s efforts to accelerate its Covid-19 response aimed at protecting the poor and vulnerable groups from the adverse socio-economic impact of the pandemic – and support a resilient and sustainable economic recovery.
“The World Bank budget support is coming at a critical time for us and will contribute towards addressing the financial gap stemming from additional spending in response to the Covid-19 crisis,” National Treasury director-general Dondo Mogajane said.
Mogajane added: “It will assist in addressing the immediate challenge of financing critical health and social safety net programmes to develop our economic reform agenda to build back better.”
According to the official, the funding was a low-interest loan that would contribute to South Africa’s fiscal relief package.
EFF secretary general Marshall Dlamini, however, said his party rejected the World Bank loan, saying there were “other ways and means of raising money in South Africa before we rush to those that are going to colonise us and take over the country.”
“You could even see that announcement by [President] Cyril [Ramaphosa] that we should start reducing coal production,” Dlamini noted.
He added: “It’s a cheaper source of energy in this county, but already those that are taking money from the World Bank have already started working on reducing in using it. So, you can see, it’s a ploy to colonise this country.”
NM/jn/APA