IBRD offers middle-income and poorer countries 15 to 20 year loans, guarantees and advisory services from IBRD.
A senior economist at the multilateral money lender’s country office in South Africa responsible for South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland and Lesotho, Lolette Kritzinger-van Niekerk said on Tuesday: “Botswana has not asked for anything at all.”
She said Botswana has only asked for a loan facility to finance the Livestock Viability Study but “when we said we don’t have a budget to support you, the Botswana Government opened it to a tender. We are giving technical advise rather than financial.”
Just like Botswana, Namibia has not asked for any loan while South Africa has only asked for technical assistance.
“It was merely for expertise and they dictated to us what they wanted,” she said.
Only Swaziland has borrowed US$29 million for urban development, same as Lesotho, which accesses the World Bank loans under the International Development Association (IDA).
IDA offers loans to countries, which are too poor to borrow at commercial rates.
Kritzinger-van Niekerk said they have provided the country with large amounts of money for projects, including financing the Lesotho Highlands Development project.
Her assessment of the situation is that countries do not want to be subjected to the conditions of the World Bank because they feel their own conditions are adequate and are of international standards.
She also said some countries have access to international capital markets and can issue bonds internationally and cited Botswana saying because it has an impressive international credit rating and it is easier for it to borrow and pay currency premiums.
“We look at it and say “why is our money expensive?” she said.
Kritzinger-van Niekerk said other countries are protesting the penalties charged when they do not draw for sometime.
“Botswana can issue a bond in local currency and attract capital from Japan and the US but we are using only US Dollars because we fear the risk of exchange rate changes.
“Now we think we can do it because we have a better credit rating than other countries. We have tried to streamline our procedures to make our money more attractive,” she said.
IBRD has US$11 billion available for lending annually.
The Bretton Woods institution is one of the world’s largest sources of development assistance and gives about $20 billion in loans to developing countries per year.
But now the World Bank seems to acknowledge that times when countries used to come, cap in hand to borrow money are gone and it has read the mood.
“We are now looking at our operational and landing instruments so that we can be more responsive,” she added.
