{"id":121713,"date":"2022-01-03T01:12:29","date_gmt":"2022-01-03T07:12:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=121713"},"modified":"2022-01-02T18:10:47","modified_gmt":"2022-01-03T01:10:47","slug":"how-to-manage-our-foreign-exchange-in-this-time-of-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2022\/01\/03\/how-to-manage-our-foreign-exchange-in-this-time-of-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"How to manage our foreign exchange in this time of Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Garvin Karunaratne<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Veteran administrator,  Sudat Gunasekera former Secretary to\nthe Hon Prime Minister , has said in his Paper  What the Government should\ndo to get rid of the present financial crisis ailing the country?<\/strong><\/a> in\nLanka Web, 2\/1\/2022 what measures Sri Lanka has to take to get out of the\nfinancial  mess we are in. I  too think that his \nsuggestions are the only way  ahead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let  us look at what happened to Turkey when Turkey allowed a\nfree float of the Turkish Lira and  to other countries  when\nthey  did what the IMF wanted it to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I quote from my book: How the IMF Ruined Sri Lanka &\nAlternative Programmes of Success;(Godages) 2006:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the period  ” 1983 to 2003, the devaluation of the\nTurkish Lira was  to the extent of 712,000%, the Ghanian Cedi to the\nextent of 275,000%  and the Nigerian Naira to the extent of 21,800%.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The Turkish Lira has been devalued 1715 times. and the\nGhanian Cedi  663 times  in the period 1983 to 2005.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

” The Turkish Lira has dropped  in value from  Lira\n336 to the pound sterling in 1983  to Lira 2,395,000 to the pound in 2003,\nmarking  a devaluation of 712,000%. “<\/p>\n\n\n\n

” I have travelled widely in Turkey in 2004 and have been\nstruck with the abject poverty- the people have no purchasing power whatsoever\nwith their earnings. Everything is available in the shops for the rich but the\nvast majority of people  do not have the purchasing power to buy  the\nnecessities of life with their meager earnings. There are vast highways \nwith no vehicles in sight for hundreds of miles “<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Actually went I visited Turkey in 2004, I had to empty one of my\nsuitcases to carry the Lira I got when I cashed a few pounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only way ahead to my thinking is to reject the IMF and go it\nalone as Governor Cabral opines, but follow the blue print of how we ran the\ncountry in the Dudley Senanayake days- 1965 to 1970. We were very strict. There\nwas no foreign funds for any luxury items. No one was allowed dollars for\nforeign study. The only exception was a grant to Chandrika and her sister\nSunetra and I had the occasion to ask the Prime Minister why he did give that\ngrant. He replied  that this was the only request he had from a former\nPrime Minister and he felt like giving it.  Then as the Additional\nGovernment Agent at Kegalla one of my tasks was to meet the Prime Minister at\nWarakapola Rest House every Saturday and Sunday morning at eight and after some\ntea, we attended at least ten meetings arranged by us or by his supporters, I\nwas with him from eight in the morning to around seven in the evening till he\ntook off in his Humber Hawk back. and I had to answer all his questions. \nThere was never a question of meeting any villager who said that he was\ndeprived the necessities of life.  Then  all essentials were bought\nwith the meager dollars we had and there were no kero or milk food queues. The\nnecessities were all imported and a rationing system was strictly enforced.\nFor  foreign travel no dollars were issued whatsoever. Even to go on\npilgrimage to Buddha Gaya one had to make an application to the Controller of\nExchange of the Central Bank to plead and get it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a strict control and I happened in 1970 to be the Deputy\nDirector of Small Industry to give allocations to small industrialists. I thus\nspeak through sheer experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Garvin Karunaratne<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2\/1\/2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author of How the IMF Ruined Sri Lanka & Altenative\nProgrammes of Success,  Godages, 2006<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How the IMF Sabotages Third World Development,\nGodages, 2017<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Garvin Karunaratne Veteran administrator,  Sudat Gunasekera former Secretary to the Hon Prime Minister , has said in his Paper  What the Government should do to get rid of the present financial crisis ailing the country? in Lanka Web, 2\/1\/2022 what measures Sri Lanka has to take to get out of the financial  mess we are in. I  […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-121713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-garvin-karunaratne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121713\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}