Ranil makes pitch on behalf of Lankan students hit by forex limitations

By Saman Indrajith

Prevailing foreign exchange scarcity in the country was taking a heavy toll on foreign tuition payment, as many parents and guardians complain of difficulty in paying school fees of their children in foreign universities, UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe said yesterday.

“Thousands of parents now have to buy dollars in the black-market as local banks have no foreign currency” the UNP leader said, addressing the UNP leaders via Zoom.

Wickrmesinghe said that there were many Sri Lankan students in foreign universities having completed their courses of studies halfway and the were in need of foreign currency to pay their dues to continue their education. “Banks do not sell at least USD 25,000. Thousands of parents are now in a quandary,” he said.

In the face of this economic crisis, the government was left with no alternative but to seek the assistance of the International Monetary Fund, the former Prime Minister said, adding that the government had to pay USD 1.5 billion as loan payments in the first quarter of next year. There was the danger of the economy collapsing. There was a possibility of Lanka receiving 400 million USD from the SAARC Fund and another 800 million USD from IMF as relief given to the pandemic affected countries. Then there is 200 million USD due from Bangladesh. Apart from that, there is no other institution to give dollars to this country except the IMF, he said, adding that if Sri Lanka could secure an IMF guarantee it could obtain a loan from another source.

China would give us a USD 1.5 billion as a loan but it would be given in Yuan and of that amount USD 350 million would have to be used only for development projects. When the funds from the SAARC fund and the IMF relief are spent on fuel, the government would not have anything left,” Wickremesinghe said.