Triangle: IMF allocation only strengthens Lebanon's elites
“Unshackled by conditions, SDR allocations can provide Lebanon’s elites with further leeway to kick the can of fiscal reforms down the road even further,” write Triangle researchers Hassan Wehbe and David Wood for L’Orient Today.
As Lebanon scrambles for any morsel of financial salvation, the IMF has made international headlines by allocating $1.135 billion in Special Drawing Rights to the cash-strapped nation. Just one week earlier, Lebanon finally formed a government mainly made up of establishment figures and free from independent ministers, just in time to help BDL spend the SDR windfall.
Undoubtedly, the SDR allocation represents a serious amount of money for Lebanon these days. Yet the Lebanese state — corrupt, sectarian and deadlocked — is more likely to fritter away the SDR allocation, as it has done with many cash disbursements before. And, as ever, it is ordinary Lebanese who will pay the price.
