The story goes that major international lenders the (World Bank [WB] and International Monetary Fund [IMF]) intend to rehabilitate poor communities, improve healthcare, education and social services. The incontestable reality is that the financial help offered by the WB and IMF make the poor even poorer. The two big lenders act deceptively and are in cahoots with governments to make the poor pay the bill for rich businesspeople's stratagems to become even richer. The IMF disguises its harsh and treacherous acts against the poor in Egypt or elsewhere as economic reforms. The irony is that loans from the IMF and WB always lead to social and economic uprisings. As far as Egypt is concerned, ex-president Hosni Mubarak paid the tragic price for the IMF's help. He was ignominiously toppled by a revolution that called for 'freedom, social justice and cheap bread'. In 1991, the IMF gave Egypt a $372m loan, supposedly to help the country overhaul its economy; the suggested reforms included a big reduction in the budget deficit, deregulating oil prices and agriculture, devaluating the Egyptian pound against the US dollar and reducing bread subsidies. The IMF also pushed Mubarak's regime to move towards a free market economy within months. The IMF's terms unleashed a spate of price hikes on the domestic market. The iron fist of Mubarak's security forces silenced the pathetic cries of the poor. Egypt's economy witnessed improvements boosted by Arab Gulf countries deciding to write off a big portion of Egypt's debt (as a reward for Cairo's stance on the US-led coalition against Iraq in the 1990-1991 war). But the benefits of these improvements were limited to members of the business community, poor and middle class communities did not get to taste the fruit of Mubarak's IMF-funded reforms. Hundreds of thousands of employees were dismissed by their companies and factories when the government rushed hysterically towards privatisation in 1997. Just like poor, illiterate and tribal communities anywhere in the world and throughout history, the Egyptians, irrespective of their religious beliefs, adhere to a culture of superstitions. Haunted by the Greek myth of the Medusa, Egyptian people are inclined to compare the IMF chairwoman Christine Lagarde to this Greek figure, usually depicted as a hideous and frightening woman with poisonous snakes writhing on and around her head. Looking directly at the Medusa turned people to stone; the appearance of the IMF Medusa could be seen as a similar curse affecting the poor and middle classes. More than 80 per cent of Egypt's 90 million people averted their eyes when Christine Lagarde appeared on local television channels during her meetings with government officials in Cairo. Egyptians fear that Lagarde's visit is a bad omen and only good news for the vultures in the business community. Considering the millennia spanning the gap between the mythological Medusa and the current head of the IMF, the aforementioned venomous snakes have been transformed into sleek silvery hair portentously reflecting Cairo's sunrays and blinding Lagarde's Egyptian victims. There is obviously a big difference between the Medusa's petrifying appearance and Lagarde's smiling face, but they have the same devastating impact. The Egyptians have neither forgotten nor recovered from their experience with the IMF in the 1990s. Their hearts started to beat faster and droplets of cold sweat appeared on their faces when Lagarde opened her briefcase and presented her terms and conditions to the officials, which they were asked to comply with before they could receive the IMF's financial help. Psychedelic conjectures uttered by Prime Minister Hisham Qandil's government did not assuage the poor or motivate them to relinquish their worries. Qandil told the press in clear terms that his government would not make the poor pay the bill—as in the past—for the economic reforms suggested by the IMF. But 70 million Egyptians vividly remember Mubarak's similar promises in the 90s. Egypt's economy suffered enormously during and after the January 25 Revolution, due to mass demonstrations, a lack of security and looting. Local and foreign economists warned that Egypt's economy was on the brink of collapse, particularly when hard currency reserves shrank from $35b to $15b.
