• Non-confidential docs to be given per only attendee TNA’s ‘transparency’-related request 

The Government has agreed to provide necessary non-confidential documents related to the agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to the Opposition as per certain concerns raised by the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) while the President has agreed to facilitate a meeting for the Opposition parties with the IMF if they need further opportunities to come up with their proposals.

President and Minister of Finance, Economic Stabilisation, and National Policies, Ranil Wickremesinghe, last week invited the Parliamentary Opposition parties to meet the Government to raise their concerns and proposals regarding the IMF agreement. The main Parliamentary Opposition Party, the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)-led National People’s Power (NPP) of the Parliamentary Opposition earlier announced that they would boycott the meeting, while Opposition Parliamentarian, President’s Counsel M.A. Sumanthiran had attended the meeting representing the TNA.

Against this backdrop, the State Minister of Finance Shehan Semasinghe yesterday (11) told The Daily Morning that the Government agreed to certain concerns raised by MP Sumanthiran and also to provide them with the necessary non-confidential documents if it is necessary. He also noted that the credibility of the allegations and statements made by the Opposition parties regarding the IMF agreement was tested again by their decision to boycott the President’s invitation. He further noted that the Opposition parties should raise their concerns and proposals with the Government as it is the ruling parties that have the power to deliver what they propose. “The Opposition claims that they don’t want to meet the IMF since they have met the IMF delegations every time they visit Sri Lanka. It is an ordinary practice. We also like it if the IMF meets every political party and discusses the issues that we face. But, this is very different, as those Opposition parties should come together with the Government to implement their proposals, because the IMF directly deals with the Government of a particular country,” he added.

He also noted that President Wickremesinghe has agreed to give yet another opportunity to the Opposition parties to meet with the IMF and to raise their issues related to the IMF agreement. “Even though the SJB and the NPP boycotted the meeting, the President agreed to give them another chance to meet the IMF if they wanted to do so,” he said.

Furthermore, speaking to The Daily Morning yesterday, Opposition MP and member of the Supreme Lanka Coalition, Gevindu Cumaratunga, said that only the SJB, the NPP, and the TNA were invited to the meeting, and that no other political groups, including the SLPP breakaway MPs, were invited to the meeting.

According to the President’s Media Division, the Secretary to the Treasury Mahinda Siriwardana shared updates on the negotiations with the creditors, expressing optimism about concluding the process by June end. “Meanwhile, MP Sumanthiran raised pertinent concerns regarding the lack of published technical assistance reports of the IMF, which is an analysis as to why certain recommendations are made, which is in turn a necessity for the publication of the analytical data to inform Parliamentary deliberations. In response, the President assured that the Government would release the data to the TNA and the Parliament, facilitating informed debate and decision making,” a statement issued in this regard further read.

Sumanthiran said that the Opposition can only decide on whether to support the IMF programme after analysing the IMF’s technical assistance reports which he says the Government has now agreed to provide. He made these remarks while speaking to reporters following a meeting held at the Presidential Secretariat in Colombo yesterday (11) with the President and Government officials for talks on the IMF programme. He also said that presently, they are unable to support the IMF programme owing to the lack of transparency and also because most of the economic reform measures are impacting the country’s poor and vulnerable. He said that the President had invited the Opposition party leaders for a discussion on the IMF programme and that however, he was the only member of the Opposition present yesterday. “Apparently, there will be another meeting directly with the IMF representatives, but today was only the initial discussion with the Government,” he said. Sumanthiran said that he had raised a number of concerns with regard to the IMF programme that is being implemented. “Primarily, the concern that I raised was that there is a lack of transparency with regard to these recommendations that the IMF has made. The lack of transparency arises in this way since there are no published technical assistance reports of the IMF. Those constitute the analytical basis as to why they make some of those recommendations.”  With regard to increasing the revenue, he said that he raised as an example the question as to why the Withholding Tax rate was not increased to immediately raise revenue. “But, based on the fact that the revenue authorities are not collecting the targeted taxes, the Value Added Tax rate was increased to 18% which affects all the people, particularly the poor in the country, and there was no adequate response as to why that was done,” he charged. He added that he had highlighted 15 prior actions that have not been done at all to date and which ought to have been completed by February of this year. He said that the Government’s response was that in discussion with the IMF, they have received extensions of time. But, most importantly, the issues are with regard to these technical assistance reports that are given by the IMF to the Government, he reiterated. “The IMF’s policy is that they can publish it only with the consent of the Government and I asked the Government whether they can give consent to the IMF to publish it. The President and the other ministers agreed that those reports can be given to us.” Sumanthiran said that since he was the only Opposition Member present yesterday, the Government agreed to give it to him and also to any Opposition party leader who requests for it. “It is only after receiving those technical assistance reports which hopefully will contain some analysis as to why the IMF has made certain recommendations that we can then decide whether this programme can be supported or not. As it is, we are unable to support the IMF programme primarily for the lack of transparency and also for the reason that most of these measures are impacting on the poor and the vulnerable and are letting the rich and the powerful get away scot free,” he added.