Author: TELO Admin

Sri Lanka is unlikely to get an International Monetary Fund deal in December as originally expected with delays in dealing with China and India which are out of the Paris Club as well as ‘bilateral issues’, President Ranil Wickremesinghe has said.

Sri Lanka has to get ‘creditor assurances’ on debt restructuring from bilateral lenders before the IMF’s executive board endorses a reform program formally.

Unlike other countries which got into default, two out of three main creditors of Sri Lanka were out of the Paris Club of creditors who had already had a well-oiled mechanism for dealing with debt re-structuring.

“I first went to the Paris Club where all the creditors were from the West and Japan,” President Wickremesinghe told a forum of tea factory owners in Colombo.

“However, we are in a unique position today where out of our three main creditors, only one belongs to the Paris Club. Japan.

“The other two are not in the Paris Club. They are India and China.”

He said China started debt restructuring with Zambia.

There were also ‘bilateral issues’ to deal with, he said without elaborating.

“I think India has it for the first time with Sri Lanka,” President Wickremesinghe said. “I have already started discussions with Japan and now with India and China.

“We get down to a common platform of how we can resolve it while we also have discussions on bilateral issues that affect each other’s countries.”

China has just finished its party conference where senior officials had change.

“If we can move and come to an agreement by December, which means coming to an agreement by mid-November, and going up to the IMF Board in mid-December, we will gain a big advantage,” Wickremesinghe said.

“However, I don’t know whether we can do it for the simple reason that in China, the focus has started now after the party conference. However, we must aim to have it by January.”

Sri Lanka IMF deal nod could be Jan 2023

Sri Lanka however has made most of the corrections required to regain monetary stability.

Balance of payments troubles are problem associated with reserve collecting central bank which mis-target interest rates with printed money through a policy rate incompatible with domestic credit trends. Active open market operations were begun by the Federal Reserve in the process of triggering the Great Depression in the 1920s.

When a country with a central bank with a history of chronic mistargeting of rates – Sri Lanka had gone to the IMF 16 times before – gets market access its tends to default.

The key reason third world countries get into balance of payments trouble is money printed to keep policy rates too low by soft-pegged central bankers which fires unsustainable credit and balance of payments deficits.

Sri Lanka has also raised taxes to reduce central government credit and hike tariffs of public utilities to reduce or eliminate their borrowings.

The central bank has also lost the ability to intervene and sterilize interventions with new money after the intervention effectively losing its ability to generate BOP deficits from around August.

A police sergeant has died after he was assaulted by villagers during a heated situation in Kebithigollewa area, Anuradhapura last night (Oct. 31).

The incident occurred when several police officers of the Kebithigollewa police were on their way to the Rambakapuwewa area of Kebithigollewa following a report that a woman had died after being attacked by a wild elephant.

When the police officers arrived at the location, at least 100 people including a Buddhist monk had blocked the road.

A tense situation then ensued as the group of individuals wielding clubs attacked the police officers.

The police officers have fired shots in the air to take the situation under control. However, a police sergeant sustained critical injuries after one of the villagers attacked him with a club.

He was rushed to the Kebithigollewa Hospital and transferred to the Anuradhapura Hospital where he has succumbed to his injuries, the Police Media Spokesperson’s Office said.

The 54-year-old sergeant attached to the Kebithigollewa Police was a resident of Wariyapola area. His body is currently lying in the Medawachchiya Hospital.

The police said a Buddhist monk and four others were arrested in connection with the death of the police officer.

Sri Lanka’s defence expenditure had risen by 300 percent, compared to that at the height of the war against the LTTE, Frontline Socialist Party (FSP) Propaganda Secretary, Duminda Nawagamuwa, said yesterday.

The proposed defence expenditure for 2023 was 488 billion rupees, he said, adding that it was equal to what the governemnt proposed to spend on health and education.

“As a percentage of the budget, I think we are only behind Israel when it comes to defence expenditure. We know why Israel spends so much money on defence. It’s not to protect itself from other countries, but to suppress people. We are doing the same,” he said.

The FSP Propaganda Secretary added that despite the increase in defence expenditure, Sri Lankans were increasingly vulnerable to all kinds of security threats.

“Are we secure in our energy, or food or health? All countries with sensible leaders prioritise them. A hungry and disease ridden nation can be manipulated by everyone. A nation without a continuous supply is doomed. We have increased spending for security, but we have squandered most of it,” he said.

Nawagamuwa said that the government relied exclusively on the IMF and bridging finance. It also hoped that tourists would arrive in Sri Lanka in winter.

“We are living in hope,” he said.

The Janatha Vikukthi Peramuna is still behaving like they did in the 88-89 era where they unleased violence on the people, SLPP MP Namal Rajapaksa said today.

“We thought that there had been a change with the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) up to some extent. But still, the way that they behaved on May 9 shows the behaviour of the 88 and 89 eras,” Namal said.

Addressing the media, he said that they thought the JVP had put their sticks, swords, daggers, and torches aside and had joined with the workforce to rebuild the country.

“We thought that the JVP would come to a policy decision to join in rebuilding the country. But this does not seem so,” he said.

While commenting on the current government, Namal said the current president is implementing a certain procedure to uplift the country’s economy. Also, he is trying to find a centre point for the policies of Sri Lanka Podu Jana Peramuna (SLPP) and his own policies.

“Therefore, we will give our best support to him. We are both separate political parties, and we stand on separate sides when considering political policies. But the President and we are trying to bring the policies to a middle point for both parties to fulfil the needs of the people in the country,” Namal said.

If we cannot come to an agreement with any policy decision, we will be discussing it with him and making it right, he added.

A Tamil writer who remains behind bars for 16 years under the PTA has won an award at the 65th state literary awards.

Sivalingam Aruran received the award for the best independent Tamil novel for ‘Adurasalei’ which he wrote at Magazine Prison.

An engineering graduate from Moratuwa University, he was pursuing his postgraduate studies at Peradeniya University, when he was arrested in 2006 over the bomb blast in the same year at Pittala Junction in Colombo.

No accused has so far been tried and sentenced over the attack that allegedly targeted the then defence secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

Aruran, who won the 2008 award previously, has had all eight books he wrote from prison shortlisted for awards at the state literary festival this year.

He was escorted by prison officials to the awards ceremony at the BMICH to receive his award.

The best novels in Sinhala and English mediums were won respectively by Eric Ilayappaarachchi for his ‘Nakula Muni’ and Dr. Premini Amerasinghe for her ‘Footprints.’

The government will appoint a committee to seek how best to integrate the Tamils of Hill Country Origin further into the Sri Lankan society, said President Ranil Wickremesinghe.

He said further that although some of the Tamils of Hill Country Origin had integrated successfully into the Sri Lankan society, some have failed and measures would be taken to assist them to do so.

President Ranil Wickremesinghe made these observations addressing at the occasion of accepting a consignment of medicines donated by the Pondicherry Union Territory and people of India on the request of Ceylon Workers’ Congress (CWC) at the Presidential Secretariat this morning (30).

The consignment of medicines was officially handed over to the President by Secretary General of the Ceylon Workers’ Congress (CWC) and Parliamentarian Jeewan Thondaman, in memory of the late Mr. Saumyamoorthi Thondaman who passed away 23 years ago on October 30th. The consignment of medicines was subsequently handed over to Health Minister Keheliya Rambukwella.

The President said that he would attend to ensure the development of schools in the plantation sector while the Ministry of Health would take over the hospitals in the plantation sector. He assured development in both these areas very soon.

Now the government is also encouraging building of houses and issuing lands to the people of Tamil origin in the Hill Country because they must have their own lands and a place to live in just like other groups in the hill country, the President added.

He said further, steps would be taken to review the plantation economy that could be affected by people leaving the plantation areas after being educated. “As people are being educated, more and more are leaving the plantation sector. The government has to find jobs for them as well as for other Sinhalese and Muslims who leave their areas to settle elsewhere. So, the government has to look at the future of the groups that would continue to live in the plantation sector and on how to improve the plantation economy as they cannot be allowed to live in a subsistence level.”

He said further that these issues would be gradually resolved in the coming years as the government resolves the whole ethnic problem in Sri Lanka.

He assured that the government would take further measures to ensure that Tamil people of Hill Country Origin would have the same facilities as other people in the country as realized and worked on under late President J R Jayawardena’s tenure.

He also requested all leaders of the Hill Country Tamils to join in this endeavor to ensure that all benefits of Sri Lankan citizenship is enjoyed by the people in the Hill Country of Tamil Origin.

The President also appreciated the service rendered by late Thondaman and said he was one of the most outstanding leaders of the 20th century in Sri Lanka as through nonviolence he achieved citizenship for all the people of Indian Origin who stayed back after the Srima-Shasthri Pact.

The President said that he got citizenship for some people who should have gone under Srima-Shastri Pact but decided to stay back in Sri Lanka.

Secretary to the President Saman Ekanayake, a representative from the Indian High Commission, several members of CWC including Senthil Thondaman were present at the occasion.