{"id":93457,"date":"2019-10-01T15:17:33","date_gmt":"2019-10-01T22:17:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=93457"},"modified":"2019-10-01T15:17:33","modified_gmt":"2019-10-01T22:17:33","slug":"yahapalana-regime-used-govt-money-for-political-purposes-mahinda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/10\/01\/yahapalana-regime-used-govt-money-for-political-purposes-mahinda\/","title":{"rendered":"Yahapalana regime used govt. money for political purposes – Mahinda"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mahinda Rajapaksa Leader of the Opposition<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Current position regarding the\nyahapalana govt.\u2019s debt crisis<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The debt crisis\ncreated in this country by the yahapalana government has now reached a critical\nstage. The total government debt which was Rs. 7.39 trillion at the time this\ngovernment came into power in January 2015, had skyrocketed to Rs. 12.64\ntrillion by the end of July 2019 \u2013 an increase of 71%. The high proportion of\nforeign currency commercial loans in the debt taken by the yahapalana government\nincreases the risk to the country. The international ratings agency Moody\u2019s\nissued a warning recently with regard to this matter. From January 2015 to\ndate, this government has taken a staggering 26 billion US Dollars in foreign\ncurrency commercial loans through Sri Lanka Development Bonds, Sovereign Bonds,\nSyndicated Loans, Currency Swaps and the like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Foreign\ncurrency loans have to be repaid in foreign currency. Hence the debt burden\nincreases automatically when the value of the US Dollar increases in relation\nto the Rupee. The value of the US Dollar which was Rs.131 when this government\ncame into power, has increased to Rs.183 today. The depreciation of the\ncurrency from 2015 up to the end of 2018 alone, had increased the government\u2019s\ndebt burden by Rs.1,709 billion. The most salient feature of the debt that the\npresent government has taken on, is that none of it has been utilised to\ndevelop the country but only to meet the day to day expenses of the\ngovernment.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whenever the\nyahapalana camp refers to the debt taken on by my government, they refer only\nto various project loans that we took to build infrastructure.  It should be noted that during the past five\nyears, the yahapalana camp has never referred to any debt taken by my\ngovernment which was not related to a project. The reason for this is that it\nwas very sparingly that my government took commercial loans through Sri Lankan\nDevelopment Bonds, Sovereign Bonds, Currency Swaps or Syndicated Loans. The\nproject loans taken during my time were long term loans taken at concessionary\nrates of interest. Furthermore the amounts that we took as project loans are\nvery small in comparison to the yahapalana consumption borrowings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

The cost of the Norochholai power plant was 1.35 billion USD. The\nentire loan taken to build the Hambantota harbour was 1.26 billion USD. The\nExpressway up to Matara cost 740 million USD, the Mattala airport 209 million\nUSD, the Colombo Katunayake expressway 292 million USD and the loan taken to\nbuild the Lotus Tower was 67 million USD. Even if the loans taken to build all\nthese projects are put together, the amount taken does not come even close to\nthe 4.4 billion USD that the yahapalana government borrowed in 2019 alone\nthrough the issue of two sovereign bonds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That would\nplace in perspective the proportions of the debt crisis created by the\nyahapalana government in less than five years. This is why I have kept the\npublic informed about this issue from time to time. My government took loans\nfor investment. Today the Norochcholai power plant is a very profitable\nenterprise. The Auditor General stated last year that the expressways are also\nmaking profits.  Last Sunday, the\nnewspapers reported that the nine story administrative building of the\nHambantota Port now has a 95% occupancy rate with companies engaged in various\noperations related to the port renting space in the building. This means that\nbefore long the Hambantota Port will also be making profits. The government can\nalso derive a large income from the Lotus Tower which was opened recently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contrast to\nthis, the yahapalana government has not built anything of lasting value or\nanything that would generate an income from the staggering 26 billion USD that\nthey took in the form of foreign currency commercial loans since January 2015.\nThe reason why my government did not have to take foreign currency loans for\nconsumption while the yahapalana government has had to do so, is because the\nlatter threw government money into political endeavours to win elections and to\nretain power.  The money spent by the\nyahapalana government to keep themselves in power will finally have to be paid\nby the people of this country. Economic crises have occurred under previous\ngovernments as well. However, this is the first time that an economic crisis\nhas come about due to the mismanagement of state funds. Never in the 71 years\nsince independence have we had a government that has been as irresponsible as\nthis in the handling of government finances. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mahinda\nRajapaksa<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leader of the\nOpposition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mahinda Rajapaksa Leader of the Opposition Current position regarding the yahapalana govt.\u2019s debt crisis The debt crisis created in this country by the yahapalana government has now reached a critical stage. The total government debt which was Rs. 7.39 trillion at the time this government came into power in January 2015, had skyrocketed to Rs. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mahinda-rajapaksa","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93457","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=93457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93457\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}