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Perspective
Zoran Jovanovski
Six holes
on the belst
Macedonia long time ago assistance to Macedonia and will con-
became a country where tinue to monitor the macroeconomic
a political background is developments and policies. For this pur-
assigned to every issue. pose there is a team in Washington, and
The last such case is the Mrs. Jesmin Rahman in the capacity of a
announcement from the International Chief of the IMF Mission in Washington
Monetary Fund Office in Macedonia ac- will continue to cover our country, to
cording to which Patrick Gitton, the come at least once a year in order to re-
Head of the IMF Office in our country alize so called consultations according to
or the so called resident representative article 4 of IMF’s Statute which apply for
of the IMF here, will leave Macedonia, all IMF members. Fifth, in accordance
and there would be no resident repre- with the announcement, “when making
sentative in his position. Media gossip the decision, the IMF considered that in
immediately started, that the IMF Office an absence of an arrangement of the IMF
closes, that someone is pushing the IMF with the Republic of Macedonia, it is not
out of Macedonia, why is Gitton leaving so necessary to have a higher represen-
at this moment, why he is not succeeded tative level in the country.”
by someone here…
Is this IMF’s usual step? So far we have
Of course, everyone can speculate, but seen circumstances where the IMF un-
what do the facts say? First, the exist- dertook steps to reduce the costs. Such
ing resident representative Gitton does was the case in the second half of 2008
not leave Macedonia “at this exact mo- before the eruption of the global finan-
ment”. In the middle of August this year, cial crisis when the total number of em-
his standard mandate with a duration of ployees in the IMF reduced. Later on,
three years ends. Second, the IMF shall some resident offices were closed, such
not assign a new resident representative as the one in Serbia, some were left with
from Washington for the office in Mace- a single employee, such as the one in
donia. Third, IMF’s office in Macedonia Albania, however both are once again
does not close, it continues to operate open with full capacity at the moment
with the existing Macedonian staff and when these countries concluded finan-
will maintain the flow of information be- cial arrangements with the IMF. This in
tween Skopje and Washington. Fourth, itself does not have to mean that in the
the IMF will continue to give technical case of the Republic of Macedonia, it is a
14 July-August 2016
