October 4, 2002
The People's Consultative Assembly has urged the government to stop its cooperation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as early as late 2003 on the grounds that the Fund cannot do much to overcome the country's economic crisis. "The MPR has instructed the government to ask the IMF to leave our country in late 2003," MPR Chief Amien Rais said in his political address to members of the National Mandate Party, of which he is chairman on Wednesday.
Amien is here for a two-day visit to install the party's district and provincial executive boards. "We will say goodbye to the IMF. Please go back to America quickly. We don't need you because you can do nothing," he said.
After being "nursed" by the IMF for four years, the Indonesian economy was getting worse because the "recipes" given by the IMF proved ineffective, he said. It would be better for the Indonesian nation to overcome the economic crisis on its own by making optimum use of its capacities, he said. "We know well our own problems. There is no need to praise America. We will say goodbye to the IMF," he said. The IMF has been widely criticized for playing a big part in determining the course of Indonesia's economic and political conditions.
Chairman of the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) Kwik Kian Gie had once expressed concern about the way in which the IMF was handling Indonesia's foreign debts and asked the government to review its cooperation with the IMF, saying it was no longer suitable for the country.
However, Coordinating Minister for the Economy Dorodjatun Kuntjoro-Jakti asked the people last June not to criticize and attack the IMF, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) because this would jeopardize Indonesia's position in dealing with its debt problems. He said the IMF, the World Bank and the ADB represented the political systems of hundreds of established countries.
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