Let the search begin

Saturday 24th December, 2022

Hope is said to spring eternal. It is the fervent hope of every Sri Lankan that the promised IMF assistance will be a reality soon. The Wickremesinghe-Rajapaksa government is as optimistic as the proverbial penniless man who walked into a restaurant and ordered oysters for dinner, hoping to settle the bill with the pearls he hoped to find on his plate. It says the IMF funds will be available early next year, and the situation will begin to improve thereafter. But the process of debt restructuring, which is a prerequisite for IMF assistance, is dragging on because China remains noncommittal.

The government should redouble its efforts to obtain IMF assistance, which is expected to be about USD 2.9 billion; such a bailout package will go a long way towards reviving the economy and preventing social upheavals. But much more needs to be done to straighten up the economy and ameliorate the untold hardships people are facing. President Ranil Wickremesinghe has stressed the need to improve the forex inflow and build foreign currency reserves to get the economy back on a solid footing; he has also called for increasing national productivity. One cannot but agree with him. The IMF loan will not be a panacea for all our economic ills, which are legion, and the economic recovery process will be a painful one.

Meanwhile, Minister of Justice Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe has reiterated that as much as USD 53 billion, which should have been repatriated to Sri Lanka over the years, has been stashed away overseas, and it must be traced and brought back. This amount is almost equal to what Sri Lanka owes to other countries and aid agencies. Even if 10 percent thereof can be recovered, the government will be able to turn the economy around with ease. Curiously, the Justice Minister’s claim has not jolted the government into action.

Minister Rajapakshe, a senior lawyer, would not have made such a claim without proof to substantiate it. So, the government’s silence thereon is puzzling. Is it that the errant exporters and others who have parked their dollars abroad illegally at the expense of Sri Lanka’s foreign reserves, are connected to the ruling party?

The Foreign Exchange Act No 12 of 2017, introduced by the Yahapalana government, has been a boon to forex racketeers, who now do not have to fear criminal action. It diluted the previous laws, which were tough enough to deter exporters, and others from carrying out forex rackets. It is also one of the causes of the present foreign currency crisis, and ironically the UNP, which was instrumental in introducing it, has had to consider strengthening the forex laws to save the economy! Pressure will have to be brought to bear on the government to ensure that the Foreign Exchange Act has enough teeth and tender an apology to the public for having contributed to the country’s bankruptcy.

The Opposition has called for the appointment of a Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) to find out who is responsible for the present economic crisis, and the government has agreed to do so. The unprecedented economic crimes against the people must not go unpunished. The PSC to be set up should be tasked with ascertaining who had the Foreign Exchange Act No 12 of 2017 introduced, and assessing its impact on the economy. All 225 members of the current Parliament, in our book, should be held accountable; if they had performed their legislative duties and functions diligently, they would have been able to make an intervention to prevent the economic meltdown.

Now that the Justice Minister himself has declared that the country has been deprived of USD 53 billion, a special probe has to be launched to trace and bring it back as a national priority. Let the search for the hidden dollars begin. And fast!