31 May.
IMF Managing Director.
Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan says the G8 countries’ decision to back French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde as the next managing director of the International Monetary Fund goes against a G20 agreement.
The G8 decision to support Lagarde is in line with a tradition that a European always leads the IMF, according to a report on the SA Broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC’s) website. Gordhan is co-chair of the G20 committee on reforming the IMF.
“The G8 countries are part of the G20, and within the G20 there are countries that have agreed on a process that would be very different from the historical process – and a process that is based on transparency, a process that will ignore nationality,” Gordhan was quoted as saying.
However, France’s foreign minister, Alain Juppe, told French television channel Canal+ on Sunday that there had been “unanimous support” for Lagarde at the G8 annual summmit held in Deauville, France, last week.
SA’s former finance minister, Trevor Manuel, has been mooted as a potentially strong candidate from the developing world.
Speaking at Luthuli House in Johannesburg at a press briefing, ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe said on Sunday that it is an “opportune” time for developing countries to offer a candidate for the position of head of the International Monetary Fund, .
“We strongly believe that the time for the developing world to bring a candidate to serve as head of the IMF is more opportune now,” Mantashe said.
He said the African National Congress believed such positions should be “based on merit and their expertise to act and not on their skin colour or national origin”.
It was not for South Africa to propose former finance minister Trevor Manuel as a candidate, and as such, no pronouncement of this nature would be made.
Rather, the developing world should deliberate together to offer a person for the job, against the backdrop of the developed world’s monopoly of the post in previous years.
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