Good Governance

Dear Editor,

I quote below a news item: "On September 17, 2006, in Singapore, the leaders of the African Development Bank Group, the Asian Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the European Investment Bank Group, the Inter-American Development Bank Group, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank Group agreed on a framework for preventing and combating fraud and corruption in the activities and operations of their institutions and that their institutions will continue to work together to assist their member countries in strengthening governance and combating corruption, in cooperation with civil society, the private sector, and other stakeholders and institutions such as the press and judiciary with the goal to enhance transparency and accountability. The institutions recognize that corruption undermines sustainable economic growth and is a major obstacle to the reduction of poverty".

Time and again MEL has brought out the true nature of the Capitalist-Imperialist system. Such a system requires these banks to perpetuate poverty and not "reduction" of poverty. They are once again turning truth on its head by saying that if there was less or no corruption, then poverty would be reduced! Big lending institutions such as the above do not lend because they want a better human society, they lend for maximising their profits and tightening the noose of debt. Moreover, how can lending to private sector be in the interest of the poor? This is the bottom line.

In order to provide a "human face" to their lending activities, huge amounts of money are spent on "good governance" on monitoring the "achievement" of millennium development goals within this system of exploitation, within this system of man eating man. They doctor and manipulate results and are now claiming that the number of poor has reduced in India and China!

The struggle of the people has to be directed against the ruling classes of this country as they fully subscribe to these fraudulent mantras and want the working class and the toiling sections to believe that somehow by fine tuning and tinkering within this system poverty will be reduced.

Yours truly,
Kamini, Chennai