Dilrook Kannangara

Ranil seems to assume that he is IMF’s sole representative! IMF has not appointed Ranil as their sole agent or spokesperson so he should stop acting like one. And Ranil is not the only party the IMF deals with. The IMF already held independent discussions with the JVP and the SJB where Ranil was not invited. There is no need for the JVP and the SJB or any other party to discuss with Ranil what they discussed with the IMF. Why a middleman when they independently reach out to the IMF for own discussions?

Ranil’s program for the IMF is not the only program. Any party can have their own IMF program as long as it achieves IMF’s broad outcomes. Ranil goes around with a false IMF boogeyman that only his IMF program can be there. Manifestly untrue. The IMF is open to any program by any government in power as long as the program meets IMF’s economic criteria.

For instance, the program Ranil presented to the IMF relies on selling profitable state-owned corporations and investments, taxing the middle class to death and depriving the poor of basic essentials so that inflation will stay low (as they can’t afford essentials). That is like killing the taxpayer to avoid paying tax. This is not the only way to meet IMF outcomes. In fact, this is not the way to meet IMF outcomes at all! There are many better ways. JVP and SJB can easily and most probably have much better ways than Ranil’s program for the IMF. There is no earthly reason to reveal them before assuming office.

Once again, the IMF has not appointed a sole agent or its spokesman among politicians in Sri Lanka.

Killing the hen that lays golden eggs is not a solution. It is a very temporary and foolish plaster solution with catastrophic consequences. For instance, Ranil says he plans to sell off Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation, National Insurance Corporation, Sri Lanka Telecom, Hilton Hotel Colombo and a number of other profit-making government-owned businesses for a paltry sum of $3 billion. This is not sufficient even to repay the $2.9 billion IMF loan he borrowed since 2002 which has to be repaid with interest. Once sold off, their profits now received by the government, state concessions and benefits now received from them by the government, state policy implementation support which they provide now and vital national security and national economic levers will be lost for good. Billions of dollars of management fees, transfer pricing, profits and dividends will leave the country making both the trade deficit and budget deficit worse.

Instead of uplifting the local poultry industry, capacity and supply, Ranil’s policy was to import eggs and chicken meat from India! That permanently scaled down the local industry and now no one will invest in the local poultry industry. Killed the hens and the economy, literally.

No wonder Ranil’s policies failed to bring foreign investors to Sri Lanka – no Volkswagen, no Google and no Starlink investments just to name a few, despite fanfare. They only serve Sri Lanka as a customer! Sri Lanka gets no employment, taxes, manufacturing plants, etc. Port City was open for foreign investors for years but no foreign investor has invested any money in it. Some promised to do so but later pulled out.

Instead of killing the hen that lays golden eggs, partly divesting the government share of their ownership has worked wonders in the past. Srilankan Airlines, Sri Lanka Telecom were highly profitable under foreign investors who owned part of the corporation while the government owned the rest. World’s best airline operator then (Emirates) managed the former while the world’s best telecommunications company then (NTT Japan) managed the other. Both partnerships were destroyed by politicians by appointing their own people into mismanaging them and wresting them back into total government control.

JVP and SJB obviously have a workable policy as it is a no-brainer. Anyone understands that selling some eggs while using others to produce more hens is a sustainable business model than killing the hen for chicken meat and selling it for a quick dollar. Sadly, Ranil and his 92 highly paid advisors including Paskeralingam who was behind so many economic disasters in the past and director generals don’t seem to grasp it. Or they do grasp it but have another agenda where Sri Lanka and its people have no place in it.