Disclosure of imposition of surcharge on IMF loan with interest, collection of billions of dollars from 5 countries including Pakistan – Business & Economy

A report by a US think tank has revealed that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has often saddled poor or developing countries with various surcharges on top of the interest on their loans, increasing global inequality. Is.

A report released Tuesday by Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center and Columbia University’s Initiative for Policy Dialogue found that debtor member states paid about $6.4 billion in surcharges between 2020 and 2023, and countries paying those surcharges The number has more than doubled in the last four years.

According to a previous report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, the IMF is expected to collect an estimated $9.8 billion in surcharges over the next five years.

Countries such as Ukraine, Egypt, Argentina, Barbados and Pakistan pay the highest surcharges, accounting for 90 percent of the IMF’s surcharge income, the report said.

These surcharges are levied on top of the fund’s rapidly increasing base rate and are the IMF’s single largest source of revenue, accounting for 50 percent of total revenue in 2023.