http://jubileeusa.typepad.com/blog_the_debt/2007/02/impeccable_logi.html 05 February 2007 Impeccable logic to sale of IMF`s gold reserves Letter to the Editor in today's Financial Times Sony Kapoor, International Finance, Environment and Development Consultant
Late in 2003, fresh out of a career in investment banking, I was the first to make a water-tight case for the sale of IMF gold under the Central Bank Gold Agreement. Working with several prominent development organizations such as Jubilee, Debt Development and Eurodad, I had recommended that the proceeds be used to fund cancellation of poor-country multilateral debts. "After several promising and successful meetings with policymakers from creditor and gold-producing debtor countries, our efforts were thwarted by an apparent lack of majority in the U.S. Congress. They did, however, successfully ratchet up the pressure for a comprehensive multilateral debt cancellation deal. The economic logic for the sale of IMF gold is as impeccable now as it was then. However, the use of scarce international public resources to bail out what is widely regarded as an increasingly irrelevant, bloated institution, complete with a shiny and expensive new building, is both economically and morally indefensible. The case for the use of gold to finance under-funded international public goods or to provide some of the missing resources to meet the Millennium Development Goals remains as strong as ever."
