Odious Debts Online
April 20, 2007

Several exciting campaigns by debt activists address opening up government loan records to the public and creditor co-responsibility for illegitimate debt.

A postcard campaign by the Catholic Economic Justice network (CEJ) has produced an estimated 85,000 postcards calling for the cancellation and/or repudiation of Kenya’s illegitimate debt. CEJ has presented the postcards to the Kenya National Human Rights Commission, a government watchdog agency, in a bid to make Kenya’s government open the country’s national debt register to public scrutiny. The register is a listing of loans contracted by the government which CEJ wants public access to in order to determine the use the country’s loans have been put to and their legitimacy.

The CEJ claimed recent success in obtaining partial access to the debt registry up until 2002. Prior to this development, the registry, technically a public document, was kept secret. In 2005, a motion to bring the register to the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament was roundly defeated by parliamentarians, which seemed to imply, according to the Nairobi-based political commentator Tom Kagwe, that the majority of MPs were opposed to the opening of a register that might reveal that many of the country’s debts – contracted for and on behalf of the people – “are odious or illegitimate.”

“The Ministry of Finance should provide an annual comprehensive financial report of public income (both loans and tax revenue) and expenditure. In this regard, a legal framework should be formulated, which establishes monitoring mechanisms that would guarantee that the Kenyan people, through the Public Accounts Committee or another organ, approves loans before they are contracted on their behalf,” said Kagwe.

In its postcard campaign, CEJ called on Kenyans to sign postcards that called on the government to: “Stop using my tax money to continue servicing debts, which have done nothing to improve the quality of my life.”

CEJ’s mandate is to increase public support for the repudiation of Kenya’s illegitimate debt and to rally Kenyans to ensure freed monies are monitored. CEJ hopes its postcard campaign will win over elected representatives to its call for debt cancellation and prompt the government to implement accessible monitoring mechanisms for future loans.

‘Parliamentarian’s Declaration for Shared Responsibility in Sovereign Lending’

Meanwhile, another campaign [PDF] launched by a coalition of NGO debt activists aims to rally parliamentarian support for audits of illegitimate debt claims.

In an effort to promote creditor co-responsibility for illegitimate debt, the “Parliamentarian’s Declaration for Shared Responsibility in Sovereign Lending” targets democratically elected parliamentarians to sign on and demand the enforcement of their right and duty, as public officials, to scrutinize the actions of their governments as either lenders or borrowers.

The declaration drafted by a coalition of NGOs that includes Afrodad, Eurodad, Latindadd, Jubilee South, Jubilee South (Americas) and Jubilee USA, states that:

“Parliamentarians who sign the declaration commit to support further research into the concept of illegitimate debt as well as initiate parliamentary audits of existing claims and debts. They also agree that principles of shared responsibility must be included in sovereign loan agreements.”

To “prevent repeated rounds of unsustainable and irresponsible lending and borrowing,” the declaration claims parliamentary participation is fundamental because it “will help to ensure that loan agreements really do reflect the aspirations of the citizens of developing countries around the world.”

The declaration was launched at the annual gathering of the Parliamentary Network on the World Bank in Cape Town in March and so far has attracted 49 signatures from parliamentarians in Africa, Europe, Latin America, Asia and the Pacific, but none so far from North America, Australia or New Zealand. The Parliamentary Network on the World Bank was founded in May 2000 as an informal network of individual parliamentarians aimed at strengthening accountability and transparency in international financial institutions in general and in the World Bank, in particular, as the largest donor of development programs throughout the world.