He builds Palaces, We Repay Money

Lukashenka frittered away billions of dollars.

The petition requiring denying money to the dictator and signed by several thousand people on change.com is sent to the IMF.

Dzyanis Kazakevich - Belarusian living in Belgium - was one of its initiators. In the interview with Belgazeta Dzyanis told about reasons of the initiative.

- Belarus takes close negotiations with the IMF, the first deputy finance minister Maxim Yermalovich stated after an extended meeting of the Standing Committee on Budget and Finance of the National Assembly of the National Assembly. But we still see that the IMF mission left with nothing. Do you think this is your merit?

- It seems to me that the leadership of Belarus provided such an IMF reaction. The key requirement of the Fund to hold structural reforms is being neglected. Besides, 14 innocent people sit in the remand prison on the "Patriot Case". And, perhaps, the key factor is unprecedented large-scale military exercises West-2017 which are planned for September. According to former Assistant to President Putin Andrei Illarionov, 200 thousand Russian soldiers will be involved in them. Putin's geopolitical appetites are growing. He began in Chechnya, unleashed the war in the southeast of Ukraine. His plans for the future are a secret. It will be a pure madness of the West to give billions of dollars to the closest ally of Putin before military exercises.

- How did you come up with the initiative and what does it aim at? How many people signed it and what is your agitation for signature collection? Is there any IMF reaction to your initiative?

- 3318 people signed the petition. Signature collection is accomplished. Requirements of the petition are as follows: to cease negotiations (including consultations) between the IMF and the leadership of Belarus unless all illegally detained are released and unless the leadership is oust from power.

The petition was transferred to the IMF through their office in Brussels - it was accepted by Jeffrey Franks, the IMF representative in the EU. The report on the misuse of state funds by the country's leadership was presented to the head of the IMF mission for Belarus Peter Dolman during a telephone conversation. Mr. Dolman noted that he would inform the staff of the IMF mission for Belarus for consideration. The IMF is an independent international organization, so we should not expect them to react like "thank you guys, we got acquainted with the petition and changed our mind about giving a loan to Lukashenka." Most likely there will be no response of the IMF to the petition. The initial response of the IMF to the petition was a formal reply. Later they changed their attitude and agreed to a conversation. This is an encouraging signal. The final reaction will be their consent or, I hope, a refusal to grant a loan to the official Minsk.

- Do you think that an international organization working directly with the government of a borrowing country should listen to the opinion of ordinary citizens of this country?

- Nobody knows the true opinion of the majority of Belarusian citizens. The main mechanism of feedback - elections - has been disabled in the country since 1996. It is impossible to conduct a qualitative social survey - the executive branch fully controls the legislative and judicial branches, as well as publicly available media. Therefore, we do not know how the majority of Belarusians treat the IMF loan issue.

From a practical point of view, in this case the government of the borrowing country is illegitimate, since after the illegal "referendum" of 1996 no elections have been recognized by the international community in Belarus. Therefore, any agreements with the government of Belarus are questionable from the point of view of international law. The regime is not eternal, sooner or later fair elections will be held in Belarus and be recognized throughout the world. Then the new legitimate government will have the full right to refuse to pay the debts taken under guarantees of the previous illegitimate government which no one represented.

In such an embarrassing situation it makes sense for the West to listen to the opinion of the active part of the civil society, so as not to lose billions of investments later. As financialists say, it is necessary to hedge the risks.

- Why do you specifically address the IMF to refuse to provide loans to the Belarusian authorities? Why don't you apply a similar petition to the RF Ministry of Finance, the Eurasian Fund for Stabilization and Development or the People's Bank of China?

- That was a random choice. But my choice would remain the same, anyway. The petition is partially of human rights nature. The situation with human rights is almost the same in Belarus, Russia and China. And the main office of the IMF locates in the United States, a country with high respect to human rights and independent media.

- Your petition tells about an awful quality of public management. Will it improve if the state refuses external financing?

-No, it will become neither better nor worse. Belarus has ubiquitous Internet, mobile phones, iPhone, Facebook, Google. But one thing is unchanged - the quality of country's management, it's frustrating. There are, for example, three (in fact, even more) black holes in the budget: ice palaces, agricultural towns, agriculture - these are dozens of billions of dollars frittered away. Absence or availability of funds from outside does not affect the quality of management. Accordingly, the growth of public debt is the only practical result of new borrowings. One of signatories of the petition remarked: "He takes loans, we will repay them."

It is clear the origin of a low-skilled management. At all levels of management the personnel is based on principle of loyalty and friendly ties. Professional qualities go to the second or third plan. A personal initiative, an ability to make independent decisions are not welcomed at all and can worsen upward move in career. Therefore, any extraordinary situation can lead to a crisis. While there are such principles of recruitment, Belarus will be shaken by crises at all levels.