I would just like to congratulate Don Robotham on his article regarding the International Monetary Fund (Sunday, June 28) and recent loans to Latvia and Ghana.

I am a Briton now living in rural Latvia and currently doing a course in development management with the Open University in England which has opened my eyes to the horrors of IMF loans of the past and I am horrified with the cuts imposed by the fund here.

The poor Latvians believe that it is all the government's fault and to some extent previous governments are hugely to blame for mismanagement but so are the Swedish banks with their aggressive lending policies.

Swedish finance minister's gall

The Swedish finance minister had the gall to call on the Latvian government to get its finances in order so that the Swedish banks are protected from massive defaulting if the Latvian economy goes down; a situation they wouldn't be in if they had not lent to naive people so freely.

Jamaica certainly does need to go into any loan with the IMF with its eyes wide open. I only wish that the IMF were sensitive to criticism from blogs, I don't think my criticism in my blog will really create that many waves but I will endeavour to point out the hypocrisy and will certainly be putting in a link to the article in my next blog. Thanks for the encouragement to keep plugging away, even if it is only in a small way.

I am, etc.,

JOANNA STORIE

joanna.storie@gmail.com