{"id":44003,"date":"2015-05-20T07:51:00","date_gmt":"2015-05-20T13:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=44003"},"modified":"2015-05-19T15:18:49","modified_gmt":"2015-05-19T22:18:49","slug":"rajapaksas-usd-18-bn-fortune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/05\/20\/rajapaksas-usd-18-bn-fortune\/","title":{"rendered":"Rajapaksas\u2019 USD 18 bn fortune"},"content":{"rendered":"

By the Economic Observer\u00a0<\/span><\/em>Courtesy Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

\"article_image\"<\/p>\n

At the time President Rajapaksa took government at the end of 2005, country\u2019s external debt was US$ 9,568 billion. By the time he handed over the government, in 2015, this amount was US$ 24,051 million. Therefore, during his period of government, net external government debt has increased only by US$ 14,483 million. In this process, government has paid all the debt service commitments for the debt that successive governments had raised in the past. This outstanding amount includes foreign investments of US$ 2,603 million in Treasury Bonds and US$ 5,287 million of Sovereign Bonds raised from foreign investors – largely from established financial centers.<\/p>\n

Of the outstanding amount, project and commodity loans amount to US$ 15,764 million. Some of the large investments undertaken on the basis of project loans are as follows.<\/p>\n

i. Southern Expressway from Kottawa to Galle funded by ADB and Japan<\/p>\n

ii. Southern Expressway from Galle to Matara funded by China<\/p>\n

iii. Colombo Katunayaka Expressway funded by China<\/p>\n

iv. KKS railway line and Thalaimannar railway line funded by India<\/p>\n

v. Outer Circular Expressway Kottawa to Kaduwela and Kaduwela to Kadawatha funded by Japan<\/p>\n

vi. Reconstruction of A9 and B32 Highways funded by China<\/p>\n

vii. Widening and reconstruction of national highways like Mihiyangana-Kandy, Puttalam\u2013 Anuradhapura-Trincomalee, Padeniya\u2013Anuradhapura, Dambulla-Trincomalle, Habarana- Polonnaruwa-Batticaloa, Eastern Province roads and bridges (ADB, Japan, China, Korea, France, Saudi Fund, World bank etc)<\/p>\n

viii. Norochcholai coal power plant funded by China<\/p>\n

ix. Upper Kotamale hydro power plant funded by Japan<\/p>\n

x. Colombo South harbor funded by ADB<\/p>\n

xi. Hambantota harbor funded by China<\/p>\n

xii. Mattala airport funded by China<\/p>\n

xiii. Several water supply projects etc, funded by Japan, Korea, ADB, India<\/p>\n

<\/dir><\/dir>In addition to these projects, at the time President Rajapaksa left office, Sri Lanka had official reserves of US$ 8,208 million. When he took office in 2005 December, the country\u2019s official reserve position was US$ 2,735 million. Therefore, during his term of office, the total external debt in addition to the building of the above infrastructure projects, contributed to build international reserves by U$ 5,743 million.<\/p>\n

Therefore the question is when the total external net borrowing during his tenure of office was only US$ 14.5 billion, how can he, his wife, children and brothers have US$ 18 billion in foreign accounts?<\/p>\n

The Mangala Samaraweera, Minister of Foreign Affairs, publicly stated that foreign financial experts from 4 different countries have indicated that President Rajapaksa and his family has US$ 18 billion or Rs. 3 trillion outside the country. How can he have this much of money when from 2005 to 2014 the total net foreign borrowing after paying past debts as well as exchange rate depreciation amounted only to Rs. 2.2 trillion? Out of this 2 trillion debt during 2006 to 2014, loans raised from multilateral agencies like World Bank, ADB, amounted to Rs. 428 billion. The total loan raised during this period from Japan was Rs. 138.5 billion. The net loan raised from India is Rs. 110 billion while the loan raised from China during this period was Rs. 84 billion. The amount raised from bond markets was 1.4 trillion. Therefore, even if you take all these together how can he, or even whole country put together have Rs. 3 trillion outside the country when the country has not borrowed that amount of money? More importantly, the Monetary Board of the Central bank has an obligation to clarify to the entire world and Sri Lankan people whether such outflows are possible at all without getting recorded in country\u2019s foreign exchange management system.<\/p>\n

Samaraweera must be held responsible for the reputational damaged he has caused to Sri Lanka due to the comments he has made as the country\u2019s Foreign Minister, particularly since Sri Lanka has maintained the highest level of integrity in its international financial transactions. People of this country should also note that the International Monetary Fund annually assess Sri Lanka\u2019s financial position. The European and American based rating companies, namely Fitch Rating, Standard and Poor and Moody\u2019s, have assessed Sri Lanka\u2019s financial condition and given independent assessments to the world financial community. Therefore, these agencies must also be summoned to give professional evidence in this case.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By the Economic Observer\u00a0Courtesy Island At the time President Rajapaksa took government at the end of 2005, country\u2019s external debt was US$ 9,568 billion. By the time he handed over the government, in 2015, this amount was US$ 24,051 million. Therefore, during his period of government, net external government debt has increased only by US$ […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44003","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=44003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44003\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}