President says foreign humanitarian aid helped mitigate fuel crisis

by Sanath Nanayakkare

No country in the world could give Sri Lanka direct financing assistance after we became a bankrupt country, but they chose to give us multiple aid under different headings that translated into crucial help to the real economy, President Ranil Wickremesinghe said in Colombo on Tuesday.

Speaking at the Tax Forum organized by Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing (SLIM) at Kingsbury Colombo, the President said,” These friendly countries decided to support us through different ways or by way of humanitarian assistance under the headings such as, ‘Food Security Crisis, ‘Response to Malnutrition’, ‘Humanitarian Assistance in Disaster Situations’, ‘Healthcare Aid’, ‘Access to Medicines Aid’ etc. Some of those were direct monetary assistance while some were in the form of goods. When we got that assistance from the friendly countries and international organizations, we didn’t have to allocate our own funds for those critical requirements. That helped us save a major part of our foreign currency earnings to purchase fuel at a time the country was struggling to pay for fuel shipments,” he revealed.

The President, however, said that was possible because Sri Lanka had indicated its willingness to move forward with an IMF programme and debt restructuring with bilateral, multilateral and private creditors. Those norms and agreements were key in Sri Lanka being able to obtain assistance from those countries under different headings. If we throw away those agreements and begin to operate on different terms, all such international assistance will stop and the people will have to start riding on their bicycles,” he said.