"OUR country can never, never repay the World Bank the debt it owes, and yet the bank is telling us to take out yet another loan!" That is what Francis Ngambi of Malawi recently told a meeting in York.

Francis, who works in the Malawi Probation Service, is founder and chairman of the Malawi Trade Justice Movement. He was appealing to the people of York to help the people of Malawi.

The country is one of the worst hit by the famine gripping southern Africa. Despite the partial debt relief it has received as a 'heavily impoverished country', 20 per cent of Malawi's annual national revenue is spent servicing debts to the World Bank and Western nations. Any further debt relief has been made conditional on Malawi privatising its water supplies, post office and other utilities and selling them to UK and other Western companies.

Appealing to the West for help during the famine, Malawi has been told to take out another loan to buy genetically modified maize! Francis asked York people to help them by putting pressure on the British Government to separate aid for famine relief, healthcare and basic education from commercial exports of goods and services. Schemes devised by the World Bank to take control of his country's economy were creating poverty, not reducing it.

The 50 or so in the audience exchanged ideas about the most effective methods of exerting the pressure Francis was requesting. The York Jubilee Debt Campaign announced an open meeting at the Friends Meeting House on the evening of Wednesday, October 23 to devise and finalise a plan of action.

Maurice Vassie,

Cartmans Cottage,

Deighton, York.

Updated: 10:06 Monday, September 30, 2002