The Debt Penalty: A Play

By Biko Agozino

The Debt Penalty is a fictional drama based on the Third World
debt crisis, using the metaphor of a heavily indebted but highly
profitable trading company to represent a Third World country.
The drama opens with the Directors of the company fighting over
the formula for the sharing of the company’s profits while the
workers protest about job losses and starvation wages. The
struggle among the Directors was used as an excuse by the Chief
Security Officer of the company to seize the administration of the
company and run it as the Sole Administrator. He offers the
workers and directors of the company an opportunity to debate whether the
company should accept more foreign loans but the workers win
the debate by rejecting conditions attached to such loans. This
change in administration did not bring any relief to the workers
and the unemployed who suffered even more deprivation under
the security administration and who were jailed for daring to
protest the hardship. The poor workers of the company also
owed rents to landlords, school fees for their children and loans
from the bank but only a Robin Hood type of character tried to
steal from the rich and give to the poor. He and his gang were
eventually arrested and sentenced to death but students freed
them just before they were executed by firing squad. They all
march to the company boardroom where the Sole Administrator
was about to hand over the company back to the disgraced
directors. They struggle and win over the control of the company
and promise to recover the loot stolen from the company by
previous administrations.

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