And while the PUDP will Balme each other for decades to come, one thing they seem to agree on is that the IMF and the conditionalities that would be imposed by a standby agreement are too severe.
The Leader of the Opposition said that he was interviewed by the IMF, and disagrees with their suggestions, saying that they need to have a bit more compassion for the working class. He also added in a few swipes at the PUP's home grown solution, saying it won't work with their exorbitant spending.
Hon Patrick Faber, Leader of the Opposition
"What the IMF proposes is quite often very draconian as far as we see things and while that kind of prescription coming from the IMF we in the UDP administration have long withstood that too. But you've got to be serious about what it is you're trying to do in a home grown plan and it is evident that our government right now does not have that kind of plan. The IMF prescribes a lot of things including cutting the number of workers for instance let's say in the government work force. PUPs aren't clearly trying to do that. They had an opportunity; they have in fact retrenched hundreds of government workers. This had nothing to do with the pandemic. They did this out of the vindictive nature of politics that they practice."
"If they were genuine they didn't have to hire back people, they fire people to hire new people. They created new executive posts at astronomical salaries $75,000 and up and these are the things that in fact fly in the face of their home grown policies. My suggestion is not necessarily to go with the very tough measures of the IMF. I think a balance can be found and a mid-line can be found and we need to do what we need to do to keep afloat. The IMF interviewed me and I told them I said there must be middle grown, there must be human compassion in all that we are doing here, because fixing the economy is very important yes, but that cannot come at the cost of human suffering and our people in this country are suffering enough and so we can't just say sent home people and fire people and cut salaries and do all of that. No, that's not the way that we would accept fixing things that are wrong."
"What the IMF proposed quite often goes against the grain of keeping things humane for our people. They can't afford to pay anymore taxes. So raising GST and talking off goods that are zero rated now that are people can afford given all the struggles that we are going through especially the high fuel cost, that doesn't make sense to me and maybe it may in the long run help the economy, but it will come at the cost of human suffering and anything that does that as I've said and I've said to the IMF we don't support that implementation of things that will squeeze our people even further, we have got to strike the right balance, we want to fix the economy but it cant come at the cost of human suffering."
