By Saman Indrajith

Opposition and SJB leader Sajith Premadasa told Parliament yesterday (02) that the government had failed to secure the optimal deal in the debt restructuring process.

Soon after the President made a special statement to the House, Premadasa said that the government haD failed to secure the best possible deal in the debt restructuring process. The globe-trotting President could have made use of his visits to secure the best possible deal to Sri Lanka. “The President says that the government has assured the best interests of this country but there are serious issues with regard to financial discipline and deliverance and promises it makes,” Premadasa said.

The government had not yet been able to provide thE House with bi-lateral agreements it had entered in relation to the debt-restructuring process, Premadasa said..

The President’s statement that Sri Lanka had been able to enter into agreements to restructure debt earlier than other countries that had been in similar economic crises was not true. Countries such as Ghana, Argentina, Ecuador, Barbados, Belize, Mongolia and Chad succeeded in entering into debt-restructuring agreements before Sri Lanka, said the Opposition Leader.

“We expected the President to furnish all necessary information pertaining to the debt-restructuring agreement. However, there was no such presentation. We are waiting to see whether Sri Lanka has been able to restructure the debts in a manner favourable to this country. We are yet to find whether the incumbent government could fare better than Argentina, Ghana and Ecuador in the debt restructuring agreement,” Premadasa said.

“The President, in his statement to the nation, said that we’ll start repaying the loans in 2028. There was a Debt Sustainability Analysis by the IMF in March 2023 stating that Sri Lanka would be able to start the process of repaying its debts from 2033. We demand to know how and why the government could not keep it to 2033 and reasons for starting this in 2028. We think that this is owing to failures that took place during the negotiations.

“The President speaks of a success in the debt-restructuring process without revealing true figures. For example, he stated that the debts we owed to the China Exim Bank was at US $ 3.9 billion and that the bank had agreed to restructuring. But he did not mention anything about the US $ 13.8 million debt we owed to the Chinese Government or US $ 538 million debt to the China Development Bank.

Premadasa said that the government’s debt restructuring process had double standard policy with regard to International Sovereign Bond (ISB) holders and the poor people in the country. It seems that the government has succumbed to the threats and pressure of the ISB holders. In 2022, it was clearly stated that the government would not restructure the local debts. However, in the face of the ISB holders’ threats, the government went for that. It did not even touch the super-rich primary bond dealers but pick-pocketed the monies in the pension funds and EPF. In October 2023, the government announced that it would not implement Value Recovery Instruments. However, after ISB holders exerted pressure, the government implemented Macro-link Bonds. It promised transparency and comparability for domestic bond holders and spoke of equal burden sharing. But there was no burden sharing by ISB holders; instead the government pick-pocketed the poor people’s money in pension funds and EPF.

“The President, in his statement, questioned the achievements this government has been able to make, good or bad. I am asking whether increase of malnutrition is good or bad, whether the brain drain is good or bad, whether the increase of unemployment good or bad, whether the increase of poverty is good or bad, whether the closure of MSMEs in their hundreds of thousands is good or bad, whether the entrepreneurs leaving their professions is good or bad, whether the collapse of construction industry is good or bad, whether the children faint in schools because they have no food is good or bad,” Premadasa demanded to know.