By IANS,
Johanesburg: South Africa Wednesday gave a call to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to select somebody from the developing world as its new chief.
The South African call came following the arrest of IMF’s managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn in New York for the alleged attempted rape of a hotel maid.
“Institutions such as the IMF must reform so that they can become credible, and to be credible they must represent the interests and fully reflect the voices of all countries, not just a few industrialized nations,” Wall Street Journal quoted South African Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan saying in a statement.
A candidate from a developing country, he added, “will bring a new perspective” to the IMF.
The statement comes amid speculation that the IMF may look outside Europe and the US for a candidate, and coincides with reports that the South Africa’s former finance minister, Trevor Manuel, is among the candidates being considered.
Gordhan, in his statement, didn’t mention Manuel by name in his statement but he said: “There are several candidates from developing countries who are credible and are eminently suitable to run the IMF.”
Manuel served as South Africa’s finance minister from 1996 to 2009, during which time he implemented strict fiscal policies that cut in half the country’s debt levels.
Manuel, who had little background in economics before his appointment, also created a budget surplus for South Africa and lifted levels of foreign investment.