The carefully-choreographed narrative of an economy on the mend came to an abrupt end with the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) post-review statement last week that laid bare the actual ground situation. The Head of Delegation of the IMF revealed that the entity had failed to reach a Staff-Level Agreement with the Government following its two-week-long first review of its 17th intervention in Sri Lanka, under the $ 2.9 billion bailout package. The reasons cited were the yet-incomplete external debt restructuring process as well as notable revenue shortfalls, meaning that the second disbursement of a $ 300 million tranche will remain in abeyance – understandably not the best news as far as business confidence is concerned.

Among the other noteworthy observations by the IMF delegation was the need to strengthen tax administration, the removal of tax exemptions at a time when there is fresh talk of exemptions being granted to Port City investors, and the elimination of tax evasion. According to data presented by a senior minister who also heads a parliamentary Sectoral Oversight Committee, the projected revenue shortfall this year is around 15%, while a whopping half a trillion rupees is reportedly being lost to State coffers due to corruption and inefficiency at three State institutions, namely, the Department of Inland Revenue, the Excise Department, and Sri Lanka Customs.

Interestingly, all three of these institutions come under the direct purview of the Minister of Finance, who happens to be the President. At least according to this particular minister, the problem with the country’s governance issues begins right at the very top. Therefore, the ordinary citizen is entitled to ask, if the all-powerful Executive cannot prevent the daylight robbery of Rs. 500 billion under his very nose, then what hope is there for the rest of this bankrupt country?

While the IMF has had its say on the state of the economy, it is yet to make public the findings of its first-ever endeavour of subjecting a sovereign to a governance diagnostic. Given these dynamics, the motivations that are driving the regime to resort to extreme measures to muzzle not only the mainstream media but also social media are becoming abundantly clear. In fact, the two controversial bills that aim to all but completely shut out dissent have already been placed on the parliamentary Order Paper next week. 

The record time in which these bills have been drafted sans any sort of public consultation, while completely ignoring legislation to uplift the economy, points to the ulterior motives behind the Anti-Terrorism Bill as well as the Online Safety Bill, which have already attracted a storm of protest both locally and internationally. The main Opposition parties have gone a step further and decided to challenge their legality in the apex court. It is inevitable that the regime will have to brace itself for the far-reaching consequences of its avaricious action to deprive the youth of this information age their right to information as well as the right to dissent.  

Meanwhile, the respected and influential International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) has stated that Sri Lanka’s proposed Online Safety Bill is tantamount to an assault on the freedom of expression, opinion, and information. The ICJ has warned in a statement issued on Friday that if the proposed legislation is adopted in its present form, it will crush free expression and further contract the already-shrinking civic space in Sri Lanka.

“The draft fails to adhere to the principles of legitimacy, necessity, and proportionality required for any State activity that restricts rights. It must be withdrawn or amended to be brought in line with Sri Lanka’s international human rights obligations guaranteeing freedom of expression, opinion, and information,” the statement notes.

The international human rights watchdog further adds that the “bill should not be evaluated in a vacuum, but instead must be read in conjunction with existing and proposed legislation that threaten human rights. Such laws include the extremely-misused ICCPR Act of 2005, the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), the Bureau of Rehabilitation Act, and the proposed Anti-Terrorism Law, which seeks to replace the PTA. This body of legislation, taken together, fosters a chilling effect on the exercise of fundamental freedoms restricting civil society while unduly expanding the reach of the security state.”

This comes on the back of the exhortation by the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) to immediately withdraw or amend the bills following a process of meaningful consultation with all relevant stakeholders, considering their serious impact on the community at large.

Be that as it may, it is unfortunate that the core function of the Finance Ministry, which is economic policy formulation, has been outsourced to the IMF, while the Finance Minister is busy globe-trotting at taxpayer expense, addressing first world issues while this third world nation continues to languish with an uncertain future. This uncertainty is depicted in the IMF’s own assertion last week that there is no guarantee of economic recovery in the current context – in other words, averting to performance issues.

The obvious question that follows is why then is the current leadership that is notably handicapped by lack of both talent and intellectual capacity to take on the unprecedented task at hand, which clearly requires professional expertise, continuing to persist with mediocrity when it has the option of going to the people in seeking a more capable team?

In fact one influential Cabinet minister is on public record admitting to the dearth of professional expertise within Government ranks in justifying the reliance on external service providers for sorting out Sri Lanka’s economic mess, including the entire external debt restructuring process. Needless to say, it is this same intellectual paucity that has led to piling on a mountain of unsustainable debt. The rest of course is now history. But isn’t the outsourcing of key aspects of governance to foreign entities of all sorts not treacherous to the chest-beating patriots and nationalists who form the bulk of the present Parliament?

At the end of the day, the main beneficiary of the draconian new laws will be the corrupt, as whistleblowers run the risk of harassment and incarceration. In a country that has become bankrupt due to corruption by the IMF’s own admission, the raft of new repressive legislation must surely qualify as the worst thing its political leaders could do to fix the problem. With the media and the citizens muzzled, it will no doubt be open sesame for the corrupt to continue to wreak further havoc. The silence of the IMF on this matter is indeed deafening.

While the country’s political leadership is not holding anything back in their enthusiasm to desensitise the nation and lull the citizenry into a state of apathy, there is no matching enthusiasm to come up with legislation to fix what is broken – the economy. Having tolerated 75 years of more or less of the same, this nation fired its first warning salvo for the leaders to get their act in order last year. With that warning falling on deaf ears, there is every likelihood of history repeating. It is for this reason that the regime should not take the people’s patience for granted. 

The fact cannot be lost on the present leadership that a Presidential Election is due exactly one year from now and all indications are that it will ring in historic change, given the post-revolution mood of the people. To mess with that process in any manner will inevitably lead to yet another bloodbath. That reality being so, the draconian laws currently being enacted using a lame-duck Parliament with an expired mandate will likely come back to bite these same lawmakers, as history has taught so many times over the course of the last 75 years.