Almost all the money owed by Greece has been used to pay off its lenders, with only 10 per cent of it going to the Greek people, according to the Jubilee Debt Campaign.

"Greece is right not to pay the IMF. The IMF should never have lent the money in the first place, with over 90% of it being used to bail out European financial institutions," Sarah-Jayne Clifton, Director of the Jubilee Debt Campaign

Clifton said that in 2010 when the IMF loans were agreed, developing countries on the IMF Board argued that banks should share in the costs of the crisis they had helped to create.

They argued banks should cancel some of the debt, rather than bailing the banks out with IMF loans. Europe and the US overruled them. Ever since, the Greek government has been in crisis.

"Only if the debts stop being paid, whether through default or debt cancellation, is there a route out of this crisis," she added.

A Jubilee study has shown that since 2010, the IMF, European governments and the European Central Bank has lent €252 billion to Greece. Over the same period, €232.9 billion has been spent on debt payments, bailing out Greek banks and paying ‘sweeteners’ to speculators to get them to accept the 2012 debt restructuring. This means less than 10% of the money has been used for anything else.

Back in 2010, nearly all government debt was owed to private entities such as banks. Today 78 per cent is owed to the public sector, primarily people in other Eurozone countries, but also throughout the world through the IMF’s loans.