IMF Help for Sri Lanka and accountability

This has reference to Mr Jayanta Kurukulasuriya’s (JK) letter in The Island of 4 February.

He says the name “International Monetary Fund” “misleads” as it is “anything but international.”

He goes on: “Historically, the IMF’s managing director has always been a European citizen and the president of the World Bank is always an American citizen. So much so that in 2011, the world’s largest developing countries (the BRICS states) issued a statement declaring that the tradition of appointing a European as managing director undermined the legitimacy of the IMF.”

Please note: This statement of BRICS states does not say that the BRICS countries also, are now qualified to hold these positions and not only Europeans or Americans. They do not claim a stake for appointment. Instead they appear to open the door wide and are speaking for ALL the countries of the world, well managed, mismanaged, democratic, despotic, corrupt or not.

Brazil is one of the BRICS states. Its former president Lula da Silva (2003 to 2010) was jailed for corruption. However, after serving 580 days jail time he was released; and after a ding-dong legal battle, all charges against him were annulled in 2021.

What is significant for Sri Lanka about his trial is, the Brazilian judiciary enjoys some degree of independence from political interference. Some degree only. No judge’s house was stoned; no judge was impeached; and no judge was shot.

So, what does JK want? Internationalise these appointments? And open the door to thoroughly mismanaged and corruption riddled countries also to stake a claim for appointment as president and managing director of these institutions?

What are those thoroughly mismanaged countries? To name a few, they are Myanmar, Ethiopia, Sudan, Lebanon, Somalia, Zimbabwe; the list is not complete. But why go so far? Look at our own country.

What will happen to the funds in these two institutions then, if these countries also appoint? Have a look at our Treasury, to get an idea. Empty. Even the bottom has vanished.

It is the political masters of these corrupt countries who will nominate them. I leave it to my dear readers to imagine who they will be – if not regarding other countries, at least our own.

JK, Please watch CNN. This channel announces regularly the number of jobs the American economy creates – by hundreds of thousands. Pandemic notwithstanding. Just today 4 February, 2022, The New York Times announced US employers added 467,000 jobs in January, 2022, and “hiring showed the economy’s resilience in the face of record virus cases topping eight hundred thousand (800,000) a day and millions of workers being kept at home.

The reason our leaders give for their inability to create jobs is the pandemic. (They are silent on why they failed before that!) The best that our leaders can do is to plead with South Korea to give more jobs to our youth. In other words, they can only plead with other countries to create jobs for our citizens also in those countries. Simply pathetic, isn’t it? Surely, we can do better than this? We have people who can. It’s just that our electoral system is malfunctioning and is eluding the sovereign people from electing them.

Crafty politicians manipulated the electoral system through the years to exclude them.

Constitutional reformers – please note when drafting the new constitution.

Seventy-four years ago, today, the Britishers handed over to our own rulers for self-rule, a country whose economy they had developed to be among the foremost in the region. To illustrate: The Gal-Oya reservoir was built with the money they left behind when settling accounts at handing over. No money was borrowed. We bought the Trincomalee Tank farm from Britain. We did not borrow for the purchase. These show what a strong debt free economy the Britishers handed over to us, or rather our rulers.

Despite such unimpeachable evidence, some want us to believe British rule was bad.

By contrast, there was starvation and famine in India. Indians were entering Sri Lanka illegally through the Mannar coast just for a plate of rice. My platoon and I apprehended over 700 of them all along the Mannar beach. The wheel of fortune has turned. Today our government is borrowing money from India to buy food.

In 1948, there was no country called Bangladesh. This country was born only in 1971 – 23 years after we received the freedom to rule ourselves. Today we are borrowing money from Bangladesh, a country just 51 years old only. How shameful. By the way what happened to that claim we used to hear when clamouring for freedom, that our civilisation is over 2000 years old and we are quite capable of ruling ourselves?

The economy of Zimbabwe collapsed not because of IMF; but because of Robert Mugabe. Zimbabwe was known as the “bread basket of Africa” when Mugabe took over Rhodesia as it was known previously. He changed the country’s name to Zimbabwe. He plundered the country’s wealth and built palaces for himself and left the country impoverished. Another dubious leader of this kind was Mobutu of Zaire, now Congo. By the time he died, he was among the world’s wealthiest in the world. But in his country even his soldiers were starving.

The big mistake IMF made in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Greece and so on was to hand over aid to the very rulers who are accountable for their economic failure. They failed to impose or impose effectively the principal of accountability in governance.

If the IMF and the World Bank are treading cautiously on the demand to “legitimize” the two institutions the way BRICS or JK wants, I can well understand why: Very soon they will have no money to help anyone. Appointees nominated by corrupt rulers of populist governments, playing to the gallery, will pocket them all to be shared among themselves. The whole world won’t be a better place then. I see the flip side of populism.

The IMF or the World Bank will not come to Sri Lanka unless asked by Sri Lanka. If invited and they do come, they should insist on one condition: All the rulers who are politically accountable to the sovereign people of Sri Lanka for the massive mismanagement through the years, should be retired; they cannot have any say in handling their assistance and the country’s economy. This condition should be made non-negotiable.

This condition is feasible and reasonable.

Brigadier (Rtd) Ranjan de Silva

Email : rpcdesilva@gmail.com