A senior economist who left the International Monetary Fund (IMF) spearheading the bailouts of three eurozone countries has lambasted its lack of leadership and said its first female chief is not fit for the job, CNN reports.
In a leaving letter obtained by CNN and addressed to Shakour Shaalan, dean of the executive board of the International Monetary Fund, 20-year veteran Peter Doyle says he is "ashamed to have had any association with the Fund at all."
Doyle, a former advisor to the IMF's European Department, which runs its programs for Greece, Portugal and Ireland, argues the body's failure to deliver timely and sustained warnings to the region's dithering politicians had led to widespread suffering for those living in stricken countries and the risk of worse to come.
The institution's lack of decisive action, Doyle says, has left "the second global reserve currency (the euro) on the brink."
"The fund for the past two years has been playing catch-up and reactive roles in the last ditch efforts to save it," he writes.
Doyle, a former IMF division head for Israel and non-eurozone nations Sweden and Denmark, was widely respected within the organization, according to IMF insiders who did not wished to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.
Doyle says one of the reasons the IMF has not delivered on its surveillance of the global economy is European bias which if anything, he says, is "becoming more deeply entrenched."
"This fact is most clear," Doyle states, "in regard to the appointments for Managing Director, which over the past decade, have all-too-evidently been disastrous."
Referring to Lagarde – who recently completed her first year in the role – Doyle says, "even the current incumbent is tainted, as neither her gender, integrity, or elan can't make up for the fundamental illegitimacy of the selection process."
