Editorial
Banking on IMF bailout
All indications are that the executive board of the International Monetary Fund will sign off tomorrow on the $2.9 billion bailout package its staff worked out with Sri Lanka in September. President Ranil Wickremesinghe can no doubt claim credit for clinching a deal on which work began at the height of the island’s economic crisis.
Ministers and government politicians are already trumpeting the impending success. They see it as a way out of the unprecedented financial crisis precipitated by their own SLPP administration. There is no argument that the country was pushed into bankruptcy following the foolish tax and agricultural policies of Gotabaya Rajapaksa who, together with the country, paid a high price for his folly.
With all that murky water under the Kelani bridge, the real question is whether nine tranches of $300 million spread over 48 months can revive Sri Lanka’s economy and deliver the reliefs promised by Ranil Wickremesinghe.
No sooner the Executive board signs off on the bail out, the IMF is likely to release its first tranche. That may appear like loose change in the scheme of international finance – the bailout of Credit Suisse last week was reportedly $53.7 billion, about two thirds of Sri Lanka’s GDP.
Media Minister Bandula Gunawardana is on record saying that it is not the amount of the bailout, but the signal that Sri Lanka’s economy is now under IMF supervision that will give confidence to lenders and potential investors. Some of the currently frozen bilateral funding, especially from Japan, could be made available, but will any private capital rush in where prudent investors fear to tread? Will creditors who bought into Sri Lanka’s oft repeated boast that it had never defaulted on its foreign obligations think of putting their money in Sri Lanka after the unprecedented sovereign default of April 2022? At the time, Sri Lanka’s external debt was $46 billion according to revised government figures.
The IMF deal was based on the strict understanding that Sri Lanka’s creditors agree to restructure the debt in such a way it will fit into the “Debt Substantiability Analysis” carried out by the Washington-based lender of last resort. What does this really mean? How much of a haircut will bilateral lenders agree to? Will the private creditors, also known as the International Sovereign Bond (ISB) holders, agree to the same terms? Out of Sri Lanka’s foreign debt, more than 50 percent is owned by private creditors.
It is common knowledge by now that getting the IMF bailout was held up for months mainly because of a delay in securing “financial assurances” from China which accounts for 52 percent of Sri Lanka’s bilateral credit. Whether one likes it or not, China can still make or break the deal.
Those who believe in a quick recovery after the expected good news from the IMF tomorrow would do well to realize that it’s a long way to Tipperary. The “financial assurances” must now be negotiated, and actual numbers established. How much Sri Lanka can pay back in the next four years? President Wickremesinghe in his candid statement to parliament on March 7 made it clear that Sri Lanka on its own does not have the capacity to payback 6.0 to 7.0 billion dollars annually till the end of 2029.
As a leader with little or no political base, except the fickle support of the SLPP, can Wickremesinghe steer the course? Sri Lanka has had 16 programs (aka bailouts) from the IMF since 1965. Sri Lanka’s track record with the Fund is not inspiring. Apart from being a repeat offender, Sri Lanka has completed only nine out of the 16 programs. In the early days, not drawing down the funds allocated to the island could have been taken as a good sign – an indication that the country was able to get out of the woods even ahead of schedule.
But the last program in 2016 clearly underlined the policy instability that has plagued the country. The program was almost on track when Gotabaya Rajapaksa jettisoned the IMF without completing it. Gotabaya Rajapaksa can also take credit for pushing the country to the abyss by spurning the concessionary credit of Japan and scuttling the multi-billion-dollar Light Rail Transit (LRT) project. A minimum $1.5 billion investment he spurned with another $480 million grant from the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) of the United States.
By the end of next year, Sri Lanka will have to face a presidential election and the outcome of that will decide if the country has the courage to keep up the reforms. Even before that, trade union pressure will test the government’s resolve to remain with the IMF deal. Wickremesinghe can also call a parliamentary election anytime of his choosing if he wants to test the public mood which doesn’t appear to favour him or his governing partner the SLPP.
Austerity is never popular but demonstrating that the rulers are also leading frugal lifestyles is necessary to win public confidence. This is woefully lacking. Those who think that an IMF bailout alone will be a quick fix to all Sri Lanka’s economic woes must think again.
Saturday 8th June, 2024
It was with shock and dismay that we received the news about death threats to COPF (Committee on Public Finance) Chairman Dr. Harsha de Silva over the ongoing parliamentary probe into the on-arrival visa scam. Dr. de Silva yesterday told Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, in Parliament, that he was facing death threats and intimidation, and it was incumbent upon Parliament to ensure his safety. He stopped short of naming names, but revealed that some ruling party MPs were among those who had ganged up against him. The Speaker only said there had been no complaint, and he would look into the matter.
The SLPP-UNP government has been doing everything in its power to have all parliamentary committees under its thumb. The COPE (Committee on Public Enterprises), which once helped restore public faith in the legislature by exposing state sector corruption, has now become a mere appendage of the incumbent regime, thanks to the appointment of SLPP MP Rohitha Abeygunawardena as its Chairman. The SLPP-UNP combine also tried to oust COPF Chairman Dr. de Silva, but in vain. However, it knows more than one way to shoe a horse.
The COPF, under Dr. de Silva’s chairmanship, has been a thorn in the side of the government, which is struggling to cover up numerous corrupt deals. Dr. de Silva yesterday told Parliament that he found it extremely difficult to function as the COPF head due to severe resource constraints his committee was facing; he himself had to pay the salaries of some of his staff members besides burning the midnight oil.
The sheer workload he had to cope with as the COPF chief had taken its toll on his health, he said, informing the Speaker that he was at the end of his tether, and at times thought of resigning from the COPF. This is exactly what the government wants him to do; resource squeezes and threats are aimed at making him quit.
On 26 May, Dr. de Silva revealed, in an ‘X’ post, that the COPF had uncovered some vital information about the visa scam and it would reveal everything after its final meeting on the issue; the COPF was committed to exposing the truth behind the controversial tender, he added. In an editorial comment on 27 May, we warned him.
While thanking him for his bold stand, we pointed out that by making such a statement, he had thrown caution to the wind, and become a marked target, with the government making an all-out effort to delay the COPF investigation lest the truth should come out much to the detriment of its interests in this election year. Unfortunately, what was feared has come about; Dr. de Silva is complaining of death threats and government moves to strangulate the COPF financially to derail its investigations.
Dr. de Silva’s predicament exemplifies the fate that befalls the few good men and women in Parliament. It is hoped that all those who seek an end to the state sector corruption will rally behind Dr. de Silva, and bring pressure to bear on the government to ensure his safety. Let Dr. de Silva be urged to reveal the names of those who have issued threats, veiled or otherwise, to him and are trying to scuttle the COPF probes.
Friday 7th June, 2024
The SLPP-UNP government is going hell for leather to make bad laws as if there were no tomorrow. It is abusing its parliamentary majority, which has been retained with the help of some crossovers, for that purpose. The Opposition, the media and trade unions are up in arms, and understandably so. The incumbent regime is a dead man walking; it is so desperate that it is capable of anything. Hence the need for it to be restrained.
The Electricity (Amendment) Bill (EAB) plunged Parliament into turmoil yesterday, but the government secured its passage. The Supreme Court (SC) determined the entire EAB inconsistent with the Constitution and recommended changes thereto. After unveiling the Bill, sometime ago, Minister of Power and Energy Kanchana Wijesekera hailed it as an excellent piece of legislation aimed at straightening up the power sector to serve the public interest better.
The SC determination left him with egg on his face. He reminded us of the proverbial curate who, while eating a stale egg, assured his host, a Bishop, that parts of it were excellent. Wijesekera’s egg, as it were, made Parliament stink yesterday, but he sought to please his masters by praising it as a silver bullet.
EAB should have been discarded and a new one drafted in consultation with all stakeholders. But the government is apparently driven by an ulterior motive; its aim is not to serve Sri Lanka’s interests but to look after those of some moneybags.
It is not uncommon for Bills to contain some flaws, which are rectified either before or during the committee stage. But there is something terribly wrong with draft Bills that are full of sections inconsistent with the Constitution. The drafters of EAB have demonstrated their sheer ignorance of the supreme law, and that they are not equal to the task of drafting Bills. If they had read the Constitution at least perfunctorily, they would not have drafted such a bad law.
Ignorant and incompetent, they do not deserve to be paid with public funds and must be sent back to law school. They must be summoned before Parliament and questioned on their serious lapses, which have caused public faith in the national legislature to diminish.
Curiously, the MPs who demand that judges, doctors, Central Bankers, and other public officials be summoned before Parliament have taken badly drafted Bills for granted. The power sector trade unions yesterday alleged that EAB was of Indian origin and geared towards furthering the interests of Adani Group at the expense of Sri Lanka.
Most critics of EAB are agreeable in principle to the need for power sector reforms; the Ceylon Electricity Board should be given a radical shake-up, and transformed into a modern organisation capable of providing a better service at a lower cost. They only asked the government to tread cautiously, consulting all stakeholders and taking action to ensure that the country’s interests prevailed over everything else. But the government was in a mighty hurry to steamroller the Bill through Parliament, making the Opposition ask whether it was doing so at the behest of some external forces involved in controversial power generation deals here.
What is passed by the current Parliament can be either amended or abolished by a future parliament in a constitutionally prescribed manner. But that does not mean that a government is free to pass bad laws, making the country enter into long-term agreements with powerful nations and their investors. It looks as if the SLPP-UNP regime did not care two hoots about the consequences of its actions.
Thursday 6th June, 2024
The outcome of India’s parliamentary election (2024) has led to a ‘perspective ambiguity’. Prime Minister Narendra Modi lost no time in declaring victory for the BJP-led NDA alliance, which secured 293 seats in the 543-member Parliament, but he must be a worried man. The BJP is short of 32 seats to form a government under its own steam; it has lost 63 seats or about 20% of its parliamentary strength. It had 303 seats in the previous Parliament, and that number has dropped to 240.
Modi has become the second Indian Prime Minister to win a third term. The first PM to do so was Jawaharlal Nehru. But Nehru won an outright majority in Parliament in 1962; Modi has had to depend on smaller parties in his alliance to retain his hold on power. Modi must be reeling from a sharp drop in his victory margin in his own constituency, Varanasi; it has decreased to 152,000 from 480,000 in 2019 whereas Modi’s bete noire, Rahul Gandhi, won Raebareli by a staggering 390,000 votes.
Modi, who reigned supreme with 303 seats in the previous Parliament, is now dependent on parties such as Nitish Kumar’s JD-U and Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP to form a government. He has had to lead an alliance of strange bedfellows. Both Kumar and Naidu were bitter critics of Modi. Kumar helped form the oppositional alliance, the INDIA bloc, before switching his allegiance to PM Modi. Naidu also closed ranks with the BJP in the run-up to the election. These politicians have been described as extremely ambitious and highly unpredictable, and whether Modi will be able to manage them and consolidate his grip on the NDA alliance remains to be seen. They will demand plum ministerial posts in return for their support. The TDP is said to be eyeing Transport and Health portfolios! That is the name of the game in coalition politics, where it is not uncommon for the tail to wag the dog, so to speak. These two political leaders are however not the only problem Modi will have to contend with. The next five years will feel like an eternity for PM Modi.
Nothing would have been more shocking for the BJP than its defeat in Uttar Pradesh’s Faizabad constituency, where the Ram Mandir has been built. Modi may have thought he would be able to win the Lok Sabha election hands down after the consecration of that temple, which became a centrepiece of the BJP’s election campaign. The BJP lost that seat to the Samajwadi Party! Modi must be disappointed that the Ram Mandir hype failed to trigger a massive wave of support for his party. This particular defeat signifies a massive setback for the BJP’s ethno-religious agenda.
Modi’s divisive election campaign failed to yield the desired result. The BJP’s failure to secure an outright majority could be attributed to a host of factors, some of them being the suppression of the Opposition, the arrogance of power, chronic unemployment, and the rising cost of living. The BJP also did not care to reimage itself in a positive light to attract the youth.
Modi will hereafter see the Congress-led INDIA bloc with 223 seats, in his rearview mirror. The Congress (99 seats) and its allies have eaten into the BJP support base considerably, but they have a long way to go before being able to capture power.
The bumpy ride ahead for the BJP-led coalition government to be formed may improve the INDIA bloc’s chances of bettering their electoral performance and turning the tables on the BJP and its allies in time to come. Modi will have a lot to worry about in his third term.
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