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Sunday March 26th, 2023

Sri Lanka president claims local polls not delayed, points to lack of consensus

ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka President Ranil Wickremesinghe claimed that the local government election that was scheduled for March 09 has not been delayed as there was “no election to be postponed”, pointing to an apparent lack of an official decision on when the polls should be held.

Addressing parliament on Thursday February 23, Wickremesinghe said the election commission was due to inform the Supreme Court later that day that the election cannot be held.

Criticism has been mounting against President Wickremesinghe’s administration for what opposition MPs claim is its relentless attempts to stifle democracy and delay the local government elections.

Opposition parties claim that the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Party (SLPP) does not want the election to go ahead fearing a humiliating defeat.

“The election has not been postponed. There is no election to be postponed in the first place,” said Wickremesinghe, inviting laughter from the government benches.

“As far as we know, a date for the election still hasn’t been announced. Some people are talking about March 09. I cannot comment on that date. To my knowledge, there has been no official decision made to hold the election,” he said.

The president claimed that the five-member election commission was not unanimous on the conduct of the polls.

“I can even present evidence for that,” he said.

“There really has been no official decision made to hold the election. So if we go and give money, I’d have to remove the secretary and ask the police to take legal action against him. The same would happen to the government printer. They will all lose their jobs.”

Wickremesinghe said that there are no funds at present, but all stakeholders can discuss a possible solution.

“For now there is no money. But for now there is no election either. There is no money for an election, and even if there was, there is no election. So what do we do?” he said.

The president further said that he is compelled to address claims made by various quarters about alleged attempts to delay the polls as it would otherwise be unfair by the Finance Ministry secretary and other officials.

Quoting a statement by the election commission that said it had been informed by the secretary of the Treasury that it is unable to provide the necessary funds to conduct the election, Wickremesinghe said: “This is false.”

The president also criticised the commission, an independent body, for having President’s Counsel Saliya Peiris represent it.

“If you’re obtaining the services of a lawyer, get someone who is not affiliated with any political party,” said Wickremesinghe.

Peiris, he claimed, is a lawyer who has maintained that his government has no mandate nor authority.

“It would’ve been better to get a lawyer from the SJB or the JVP,” he said.

Wickremesinghe also took a swipe at the main opposition party, the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB). He said he had advised SJB member Mujibur Rahuman who had recently resigned from his seat in parliament to contest the local government elections as the SJB’s Colombo mayor candidate.

“I sent a message to Mujibur Rahuman telling him not to resign and that he would be thrown under the bus,” said Wickremesinghe, to the apparent amusement of government MPs.

“I’m the one who brought him to parliament. I wanted to keep him in parliament,” he said.

“I will not comment further on that,” he added. (Colombo/Feb23/2023)

Comments (4)

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  1. laksiri says:

    When the president of the country is a joker and a criminal, what else you expect other than this

  2. sam says:

    How can this man trust by IMF to give 42.9B when he lies to his people after doing every possible thing to stop the election and now acts like a mentally sick man?

  3. Channapr says:

    He is twisting words to confuse but his intent to scuttle elections is obvious. He is an Ethically Compromised Person.

  4. Mohamed A Hassen says:

    As responsible media, the views of the Election Commission should be sought and publicized on their decision to hold an election despite the utterances of a person of the calibre of RW.

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Comments (4)

Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  1. laksiri says:

    When the president of the country is a joker and a criminal, what else you expect other than this

  2. sam says:

    How can this man trust by IMF to give 42.9B when he lies to his people after doing every possible thing to stop the election and now acts like a mentally sick man?

  3. Channapr says:

    He is twisting words to confuse but his intent to scuttle elections is obvious. He is an Ethically Compromised Person.

  4. Mohamed A Hassen says:

    As responsible media, the views of the Election Commission should be sought and publicized on their decision to hold an election despite the utterances of a person of the calibre of RW.

Sri Lanka seeks to settle India ACU debt, credit lines over 5-years

ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka has requested India to settle payments due to the country under the Asian Clearing Union mechanism and credit lines given in 2022 over 5 years, Indrajit Coomaraswamy, an advisor the island’s government said.

Sri Lanka is negotiating with India to settle the money over a 5-year period, Coomaraswamy, a former central bank governor told an online forum hosted by the Central Bank.

“Our request from the Indians is to settle it over five years,” he said. “That I think is still in the early stages of negotiation. The same with the one billion line of credit.”

Sri Lanka’s central bank owed the ACU 2.0 billion US dollars to the Asian Clearing Union according to a year end debt statement, issued by the Finance Ministry.

Sri Lanka owned India, 1,621 million dollars according to ACU data by year end, excluding interest.

India has given a 1 billion US dollar credit line to Sri Lanka as well a credit line for petroleum.

Sri Lanka in March 2024 has paid 121 million US dollar out of a 331 million US dollar IMF tranche to settle an Indian credit line.

Indian credits were given after the country defaulted in April 2022 as budget support/import when most other bilateral lenders halted giving money. (Colombo/Mar26/2023)

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Sri Lanka coconut auction prices up 1.16-pct

ECONOMYNEXT- Sri Lanka’s coconut auction prices went up by 1.16 percent from a week ago at an auction on Thursday, data showed.

The average price for 1,000 nuts grew to 83,219.45 from 82,260.58 a week earlier at the weekly auction conducted by Sri Lanka’s Coconut Development Authority on March 23.

The highest price was 92,500 rupees for 1,000 nuts up from the previous week’s 90,600 rupees, while the lowest was 76,500 also up from 70,000 rupees.

The auction offered 900,010 coconuts and 583,291 nuts were sold. (Colombo/Mar 26/2023)

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Sri Lanka in talks for billion dollar equivalent Indian rupee swap

ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka is in talks with India for a billion US dollar equivalent Indian rupee central bank swap, to facilitate trade, Indrajit Coomaraswamy, ad advisor to the government said.

“The amount is still uncertain it could be up to the equivalent of a billion US dollars,” Coomaraswamy told an online forum hosted by Sri Lanka’s central bank.

The money will be used to facilate India Sri Lanka trade, he said.

India has been trying to popularize the use of Indian rupees for external trade and also encouraged Sri Lanka banks to set up Indian rupee VOSTRO accounts.

However the first step in popularizing a currency for external trade is to get domestic agents, especially exporters, to accept their own currency for trade, like in the case of the US or EU, analysts say.

India’s billion US dollar credit to Sri Lanka given during the 2022 crisis is settled in Indian rupees (transaction need).

However the Indian government itself has chosen to denominate it in US currency for debt purposes (future value).

In most South Asian nations, receivers of remittances are willing to accept domestic currencies, leading to active VOSTRO account transactions.

Sri Lanka is expected to repay a 400 million US dollar swap with the Reserve Bank of India next year under an International Monetary Fund backed program for external stability and debt re-structuring.

Central bank swap proceeds sold to banks, which are then sterilized with inflationary open market operations, can trigger forex shortages and currency crises, analysts warn.

Sri Lanka went to the International Monetary Fund after two years of inflationary monetary operations by the central bank’s issue department (money printed to suppress interest rates) triggered the biggest currency crisis in its history and external sovereign default.

Sri Lanka had gone to the IMF 16 times with similar external troubles except for the April 2003 extended fund facility under Central Bank Governor A S Jayewardene which was a purely reform-oriented program with the World Bank (PRGF/PRSP) program at a time when he was collecting reserves with deflationary monetary policy and perhaps the lowest inflation since the Bretton Woods collapsed. (Colombo/Mar26/2023)

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