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South Africa's EFF slams World Bank, IMF loans

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Denis Farrell/Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

South Africa

Supporters of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party rallied in Cape Town to denounce South Africa's borrowing from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

The protestors had gathered outside the venue where finance minister Enoch Godongwana was delivering the annual Budget Speech.

Last July, South Africa's Treasury announced that it had secured $4.3 billion from the IMF. The EFF denounced the lenders as economic terrorists.

"We will explain to you when we come back here, that when the national treasury announced the loan from the World Bank, both the minister and the deputy minister of finance were not aware. But there's a clique within national treasury that is in control of national treasury, and even takes dangerous decisions, such as taking loans from the World Bank, and the IMF," said Floyd Shivambu, the party's Deputy President.

In January, the country took $750 million from the World Bank to strengthen its pandemic response. 

The EFF has slammed the loans as 'genocide'.

South Africa's economic recoverywill be difficult, the finance minister warned on Wednesday.