Credit: Shutterstock / International Monetary Fund

By Gary Raynaldo  DIPLOMATIC TIMES

The International Monetary Fund board  Monday approved a $2 billion loan payment to Egypt, the latest action in the country’s three-year $12 billion aid program. Monday’s installment brings the total paid to Cairo to about $10 billion since the loan deal was signed in November 2016. At the time of the initial loan deal arrangement in 2016, the  Executive Board of the IMF approved a three-year extended agreement under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) for the Arab Republic of Egypt for an amount equivalent to SDR 8.597 billion ( US $12 billion, or 422 percent of quota) to support the authorities’ economic reform program. Egypt was required to impose harsh austerity measures to stimulate the economy and reduce the budget deficit, including hiking fuel prices and electricity rates.

Credit: IMF.org /   Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund 

 “The Egyptian authorities embarked on an ambitious economic reform program in 2016 that is being supported by an IMF financial arrangement. Since then, Egypt has made substantial progress as evident in the success achieved in macroeconomic stabilization. Its growth rate is now among the highest in the region, the budget deficit is on a declining trajectory, and inflation is on track to reach the Central Bank of Egypt’s target by the end of 2019. Unemployment has declined to around 10 percent, which is the lowest since 2011, and social protection measures have been expanded.

Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF),  statement. 

According to the IMF, the EFF-supported program will help Egypt restore macroeconomic stability and promote inclusive growth. Policies supported by the program aim to correct external imbalances and restore competiveness, place the budget deficit and public debt on a declining path, boost growth and create jobs while protecting vulnerable groups, according to the IMF. Egypt was required to impose harsh austerity measures to stimulate the economy and reduce the budget deficit, including hiking fuel prices and electricity rates.

While many applaud Egypt’s economic progress, others are of the  opinion that it has come at a huge cost to human rights, and freedom of expression, as the government cracks down on dissent. 

Is  Sisi  Hindering Egypt’s Economic Progress?:  Middle East Eye

“The repeatedly laudatory statements by the IMF on the state of the Egyptian economy are alarmingly reminiscent of the years before 2011, and fail to tackle key problems.”

Chloe Teevan,  Middle East Eye . 

“With population growth of 2.4 percent per year, amounting to approximately two million people per year, an education system that fails to deliver even basic literacy, official youth unemployment of 24.8 percent (based on a labour force of just one-third of the population) and poor quality informal employment for most working Egyptians, the structural issues facing the country are profound,” Chloe Teevan writes in Middle East Eye.

Egypt: Al-Sisi Should End Rights Abuses:  Human Rights Watch

“Al-Sisi effectively took power in July 2013 and became president in June 2014. His flagrant disregard for human rights has led the country into its worst rights and political crisis in decades. Rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, have documented a host of serious abuses by the police and National Security Agency (NSA), the leading internal security force under the Interior Ministry, including routine and widespread torture of detainees.”     

Human Rights Watch.