Dollars and conscience

Friday 5th August 2022

Sri Lanka’s struggle to shore up its crumbling economy continues, and there are no signs of promised foreign assistance materialising anytime soon. The Cabinet has just retained the services of some foreign firms for external debt restructuring, which is one of the main conditions for the IMF bailout package. When the country finally decided to ask for IMF help, after months of dilly-dallying, which took a heavy toll on its foreign reserves, it expected some bridge loans to tide it over until the finalisation of IMF assistance. But it has been left to fend for itself; only India has extended some tangible help, which has stood it in good stead. At this rate, the IMF is likely to take a month of Sundays to deliver promised assistance, and the economic situation here is sure to take a turn for the worse, further aggravating social unrest, which inhibits economic recovery.

Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) Dr. Nandalal Weerasinghe has expressed displeasure at the manner in which local exporters are handling their dollar earnings. Taking part in a recent Hiru TV discussion, he said Sri Lanka’s export proceeds amounted to about one billion dollars a month, but only 20% of them were converted to rupees, and exporters claimed that loan repayments and raw material imports, etc., accounted for 80% of their foreign earnings. Disputing their much-publicised claim, Dr. Weerasinghe said that according to the CBSL data, those percentages were not realistic, and about 50% of export proceeds should be brought into the country through the banking system and converted to rupees. If the exporters did so, the country would have enough dollars for fuel imports, he added.

Everyone knows that most Sri Lankan exporters park a sizeable chunk of their foreign earnings overseas while the country is desperate for forex. The question is how to ensure that the country benefits from its export proceeds the way it should. Many economic analysts have been asking this question during the past several years, but there has been no satisfactory answer, much less meaningful action to prevent forex rackets. Jayampathy Molligoda, in his article, ‘Why is the Singapore dollar strong and the SL rupee weak?’ published in this newspaper on Wednesday (03), discussed some vital issues pertaining to export earnings. Pointing out that the private sector had benefited from low interest rates, and the float of the rupee, he asked whether the country was getting export proceeds in keeping with the applicable regulations and, if not, whether the CBSL strictly enforced penalties for noncompliance.

As for the government’s efforts to boost the forex inflow by removing impediments thereto, the so-called moral suasion alone will not do. There are some exporters who really feel for the country and play a straight bat, as it were, but sadly they are only a microscopic minority. The need for tough laws to curb forex rackets cannot be overemphasised. Some loopholes in the Exchange Control (FE) Act have enabled unscrupulous exporters to leave most of their dollars overseas while the Sri Lankan economy is screaming, and they have to be closed as a national priority.

Leniency breeds irregularities in the world of business. This is what has happened since 2017, according to the Opposition, which says the original FE Act, which was designed to prevent questionable forex outflows, was replaced with a new one in 2017 under the Yahapalana government purportedly to liberalise the flow of foreign exchange. The move was obviously aimed at helping the UNP cronies, some of whom had fallen foul of the law. The new Act, according to the Opposition, did away with provision for the mandatory confiscation of assets of the forex law violators; under the previous Act, such violations were criminal offences.

The FE Act, which is said to have benefited forex racketeers, has to be changed and remedial action taken to regulate export proceeds, which are a sine qua non for resolving the current economic crisis. Ironically, the aforesaid questionable changes to the FE laws were introduced when Ranil Wickremesinghe was the Prime Minister in the Yahapalana government. Its ill-effects are being felt under his presidency!

Now that it has been revealed that the exporters’ skulduggery costs the country a huge chunk of export proceeds, and has stood in the way of efforts being made to raise dollars for fuel imports, etc., the government has to do everything in its power to strengthen the foreign exchange laws. Fairness demands that the wealthy exporters who benefit from a host of concessions and the rupee depreciation, make a significant contribution to the ongoing efforts to revive the economy and ameliorate the suffering of fellow citizens. Exporters themselves will gain hugely from the availability of dollars for imports, especially fuel, which is essential for economic recovery and socio-political stability.