Hamilton Reserve Takes Strong Stance on Sri Lanka
IMF Postpones Review until January
Internal Divisions in Malimawa Brought to Light
Gampaha Candidates Clash Over Pursuit of ‘Thieves’
Uncertain Prospects for Single-Party Parliamentary Majority
Minority Parties Key to NPP’s Government Formation
IMF not ready?
While other media outlets overlooked the details of the negotiations between the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the new government, the Mawrata “Inside Politics” column delivered exclusive, well-substantiated insights. Based on thoroughly verified information from Washington, we reported that the IMF’s second review would be postponed until next year. This disclosure has since been corroborated by both the government and the IMF. Additionally, we highlighted the lack of resolution in recent discussions between the parties—another fact later confirmed by the government.
In a separate revelation, we shared that President Anura Kumara Dissanayake plans to fully digitize Customs, the Inland Revenue Department, and the Excise Department to boost government revenue. The President himself confirmed this initiative in a recent dialogue with bankers, just a week after our report. Furthermore, consistent with our earlier disclosure, the President announced that a Sri Lankan scholar from abroad is prepared to assist in digitizing these key institutions.
These three exclusive insights, published last week in “Inside Politics,” have now been publicly validated, underscoring our commitment to accurate, timely reporting.
With the financial fund’s review postponed until next year, the government now plans to present its inaugural budget in March, with the third loan installment similarly delayed. The delay stems from the international community’s reservations about the new economic policy, which has yet to inspire confidence. Notably, the government intends to raise public sector salaries next year, but the financial fund has expressed concerns about securing the necessary funds. Additionally, there is some hesitation within the fund regarding the financing of the fertilizer subsidy, increasing pensions, and supporting various welfare programs.
Hamilton Reserve…
The Inside Politics column has learned that the Sri Lankan government is facing a serious issue involving the Hamilton Reserve Bank of America, which had purchased Sri Lankan bonds. This bank has filed a complaint in the New York Federal Court. Following Sri Lanka’s declaration of bankruptcy in 2022, the government decided to default on all foreign debts. In response, Hamilton Reserve Bank of America, as a bondholder, filed a lawsuit in New York, seeking a court order for the repayment of its investment. The Inside Politics column was the first Sri Lankan media source to report on this case.
According to information received from U.S. sources, there is a high likelihood that the case may result in an unfavorable judgment against Sri Lanka. Should the court decide against Sri Lanka, the government would be obligated to repay the debt to the U.S. bank. A particularly concerning aspect is that this judgment could set a precedent, potentially prompting over 100 other foreign creditors with unpaid bonds to file similar claims for repayment in their own courts. This would pose a severe challenge for the Sri Lankan government, which is already grappling with a critical shortage of foreign currency.
Initially, to mitigate the risk, the Sri Lankan government sought assistance from the U.S. government to delay the court’s decision. However, with recent political shifts in Sri Lanka, it appears that the case has proceeded at a faster pace, moving closer to a final judgment.
Exchange of letters
This was confirmed due to a letter submitted to the Federal Court by the Hamilton Reserve Bank on October 1st. Through that letter, the Hamilton Reserve Bank had pointed out to the court that there has been a political upheaval in Sri Lanka and that Mr. Anura Kumara Dissanayake, a leader representing the left, has come to power, and that there is a problem with their economic policy. Will Anura’s government continue the economic program brought by the previous governments? The Hamilton Reserve Bank has indicated that there is a problem whether they will withdraw from the agreement and accept the foreign debt restructuring program.
Based on this letter, the bank has presented the facts before the court and has further indicated that there is a risk that Anura’s party will not have a majority in the background of the dissolution of the Parliament of Sri Lanka and the calling of a general election. If a government is elected, the debt payment program will be disrupted, and for this reason, the decision in this case should be announced immediately without delay.
It was also reported to the government that the Hamilton Reserve Bank has informed the Federal Court about the situation in Sri Lanka through a letter. The government immediately took steps to respond to it. It is through Clifford & Chance Company, which is in charge of Sri Lanka’s foreign debt restructuring program. Accordingly, on October 4th, the relevant company has informed the Federal Court through a letter that even if the government changes, the economic policy that Sri Lanka has maintained until now will not be changed. Relevant company has informed the court about the economic policy of the President Anura Kumara Dissanayake will not change the agreement with the financial fund continued uninterrupted despite the change of government.
Despite the situation is like this, if the federal court decides to announce the decision of the Hamilton Reserve Bank case in favor of the bank, the government will not be able to pay the money. If such a situation arises, other creditors who have not yet been paid their debts will also file a lawsuit against the Government of Sri Lanka based on the relevant judgment. Needless to say, the situation will be extremely dangerous if that happens.
Despite this one aspect is clear. The Malima government which came to power by promising to change the country, systems, and certain sections of IMF agreement it is crystal clear by the letter sent by Clifford and Chance on behalf of the government that it would not do any change but follow the path taken by Mahinda, Ranil and Sajith.
Missing name lists?
Before the presidential election, we made an extraordinary revelation through the ‘Inside politics ‘ column and said that the former President Ranil Wickremesinghe had deliberately given liquor licenses to the opposition MPs to get their support to the government, and that a few selected MPs of the opposition had been given crores and billions of money from the government’s decentralized funds.
It was noted there some MPs had been given two or three liquor licenses, a Catholic MP representing Gampaha in SJB had given a license to produce alcohol to start a liquor corporation, and the concerned MP had given the license to a businessman and obtained a large amount of money. After this revelation we made, it was none other than the high-level representatives of Malimawa who gave it a big publicity. Outlining this revelation we made, they said that Mr. Anura Kumara Dissanayake will cancel all these liquor licenses immediately after assuming the office of President, and that the list of names of those who obtained liquor licenses from the former President will be disclosed to the country for the public to know.
It is pathetic to note that even after a month has passed since Anura was sworn in as the President of the country, he still has not disclosed the list of the names of these former MPs. As the President, the Ministry of Finance is under Anura. The Excise Department is also under Anura. The government is under the president. In that case, Anura can get the list of the names of the MPs who obtained liquor licenses from the former president in a few minutes. But even though it has been a month since the President was appointed, it is still a dilemma that the list of MPs who took the bar license as bribe has not been disclosed to the country. A serious question has now arisen that the list is not coming out because of the secret deals made by some former strongmen with the President.
When Mr. Wasantha Samarasinghe attended a press conference and revealed the name of a member of parliament who obtained this bar license and the checks in which the money was transferred, it ended there. Wasantha Samarasinghe said there that Mr. J.C. Alavathuwala who was a SJB MP has obtained a liquor license and sold it to some party member. Vasantha revealed to the media a check that was exchanged concerning this transaction with numbers. Ever since this press briefing till today Wasantha Samarasinghe did not speak a word about it. J.C. Alavathuwalada who was accused thus is once again running for the general election from SJB in Kurunegala district.
The same can be said about the list of MPs who received decentralized funds. The Ministry of Finance, Divisional Secretariat etc. are all under the President. All MPs representing Parliament should be entitled to these decentralized funds, but former President Ranil Wickramasinghe had given them only to a few selected MPs representing SJB, Tamil Alliance and Muslim parties. It is not too difficult for the President to get the list of names. But the problem is that the list of names has not yet been disclosed by the government as promised then.
Former member of Tamil Alliance Mr. M.A. Sumanthiran’s challenge thrown to the government by holding two press conferences cannot be dismissed easily. There, Sumanthiran publicly said that there are several MPs who have taken two or three liquor licenses from Ranil in the North, and if possible, to reveal their list of names. The reason for Sumanthiran’s challenge was that Sreedharan, who was a Dravida member of the North, had been accused of obtaining 3 liquor licenses from Ranil. But when Anura became the President, Sridharan, who had met Anura, had taken steps to hold talks with him. Although it was announced by the Presidential Media Unit, steps were taken not to release any photos to the media. Accordingly, many people have doubts about whether Sreedharan made a political deal after meeting the President.
Devananda too gone
In addition, last week another Dravidian leader from the North, Douglas Devananda, had also come to Colombo to meet the President. Douglas is a staunch Mahindaist who has been in politics with Mahinda since his time. Douglas, who supported Gota after Mahinda, later supported Ranil after Gota’s escape and sat in Ranil’s cabinet. However, the accusations against Douglas are very serious.
However, the information we have says that Douglas, who met the President, informed that he maintains a close relationship with India and informed that it is possible to build a bridge between India and the President.
I have a close relationship with India. During our government, many projects were done together with India. The same officers that we put are still working on those projects. But now there is a question about what will happen to these projects. India is also looking forward to the future of these projects. It has been learned that Douglas has informed the President that they also have a question whether these will continue to be implemented.
This was further confirmed when Douglas came out after the discussion and informed his friends about it. Douglas had said that the President had informed him to continue all the Indian projects with the former officials as they had been done so far. Also, Dalgus, who went to the North and met the political leaders there, told them that he met the President and informed them that his party would get 10 seats from the North, and that after the election, he would give the support of his 10 MPs to the President.
As far as we know, Douglas’s EPDP has no chance of getting 10 seats in the North. From the north, his party will get a maximum of one or two MPs this time. And as Douglas claims, he has no big deal or friendship with India. On the other hand, India does not use Douglas to send messages to Sri Lanka. On the other hand, there is an injunction against Douglas preventing his entry to India. Accordingly, it is certain that India does not know anything about a discussion between Douglas and Anura.
Majority is not possible
Similarly Sridharan and Douglas suddenly went and discussed with the President, and about not publishing the list of MPs who had obtained bar licenses, who had not announced that they would give them. There we were able to uncover some doubt about the correlation between these events.
The doubt is that the government is nervous about getting the majority of 113 even though the victory is certain in the upcoming parliamentary elections. This apprehension has arisen for the government after observing the election results of the Elpitiya local council election held within a month after winning the presidential election. Generally, the common situation in Sri Lanka is that after a big presidential victory, whatever vote is held next, the winning team records another huge victory. But in the Elpitiya election, Malimawa could not get at least 50% of the votes. Under such a background, the Malima stalwarts are currently in a crisis situation regarding the situation that may arise if they are unable to get the parliamentary majority in the general election.
Accordingly, last week a special discussion was held at a certain place in Colombo to discuss this matter. Although we have received information about the place, time, and who participated in the discussion, we are not going to report it at this moment, however, there was a long discussion about how to form the government if Malima could not get the majority for any reason. While discussing the election tactics, many have pointed out that under the current situation, Malima can win a maximum of 95 to 100 seats. Any addition to this is said to be bonuses. Accordingly, in that discussion, it has been suggested that if the government is unable to get the majority for some reason, to form a government by gathering people like Sreedharan, Rauf Hakeem, Digambaram, Douglas Devananda .
Apart from this, the measures to be taken in case the compass falls below 90 seats have also been discussed here. It has been suggested that in that case Sajith’s Samagi Jana Balawega will be elected as the main opposition, so we should work with them to maintain a consensus government for about 3 years.
Accordingly, Sajith has now increased the meetings of the Samagi Jana Balavega and aimed his full energy at the general election. On the other hand, many people are of the opinion that the list of MPs who have taken bar licenses and decentralized funds from the government side is not coming out with the aim of getting the support of MPs in the North after the general election.
JVP-Malima conflict
Two weeks after Anura was sworn in as the President, we revealed through this column that a cold war has started between JVP and Malimawa based on nominations. With the JVP working to give more nominations to JVP members in the districts, there was a strong opposition to it from Malima. They said that more doctors and professors in Malimawa should get more nominations from each district because they should get a bigger share of the victory.
This situation became a bit heated during the appointment of the new chairman of the University Grants Commission. As the Prime Minister, Harini was in favor of the person who served as the Chairman of the Allocation Commission, but Anura decided to appoint another person. Although some social media had reported that there was some disagreement between Anura and Harini behind the scenes in this regard, Harini had made a statement saying that there is no such conflict between her and Anura. Although Harini said that, Anura had not made any statement in this regard publicly. But this time we mentioning in this column that this JVP compass conflict is heated up since the general election.
This is due to the fact that JVP is currently launching a massive propaganda campaign in every district by getting its members to publicize only the number and pictures of JVP leaders. For the past few days, they had informed the heads of Malimawa and Harini that they have been treated with great injustice because they are not able to access this JVP mechanism, candidates had directly complained about this.
Accordingly, JVP’s goal is to make 95% of the Malima representatives who will be elected to Parliament this year as JVP MPs. For example, if 4 MPs are appointed from one district, their plan is to convert all 3 of them into JVP, and through that, bring real JVP leaders to Parliament by filtering out the compass representatives.
One example of this is when the JVP broke its policy of not falling into the preference fight and entered the preference fight in this year’s general election. Lalkantha publicly stated that this time Malima will also be asked to give preferences, and the people who get the most preferences will be elected to the parliament. Accordingly, the JVP is currently preparing to give the same pleasure as under Pohottuwa to the candidates who are running under the compass and let them suffer a natural death. Accordingly, many people are of the opinion that many of the doctors and professors who are present in many districts of Malima during the general election will not be able to come to the Parliament this year.
Japan’s view on Nimal
Nimal Siripala was a cabinet minister in every government after 1994 in this country. Nimal Siripala was also in Chandrika’s cabinet when Chandrika was president. When Mahinda was president, Nimal Siripala was in Mahinda’s cabinet for 10 years. Nimal Siripala was also in the cabinet of Maithripala Sirisena who came to power after defeating Mahinda. Nimal Siripala was allocated a cabinet ministership in Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s cabinet after Maithri. Moreover, Nimal Siripala worked as a cabinet minister in Ranil’s government, and became president through the parliament after Gotabaya’s escape. Nimal Siripala has worked as a cabinet minister in all the governments since 1994 and has also created a record.
It is not that Nimal Siripala was not accused of various corruptions during these 30 years. But Nimal Siripala was able to suppress all those accusations with the help of the presidents who were in power at that time and continue to be the minister. But Nimal Siripala was accused during Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s tenure. At that time, there was an allegation of demanding a bribe of 2000 lakh rupees from the Japanese ‘Taisei’ company, which was in charge of the expansion of the Katunayake airport.
These accusations were made not by the media or the opposition political party, but by Mr. Misukoshi Hidakai, who served as the Japanese ambassador to this country. He did not present that accusation to the media or any other place but to Mr. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa who was the executive president of this country at that time. This was because Japan has always acted as a country that does not allow commissions or bribes in investments or development programs and does not allow corruption.
However, when the Japanese ambassador made this serious complaint against Nimal Siripala, Gotabaya removed Nimal from the cabinet ministry and appointed a special committee to investigate the matter.
Despite this situation, due to the struggle, Gotabha had to leave the presidency and flee the country. Gotabaya’s government collapsed. After that, Ranil became the president in the presidential election vote held inside the parliament. After becoming the President, Ranil gave Nimal Siripala the Ministry of Ports and Aviation again. There, Ranil had appointed a committee with someone close to him and the committee submitted a report that Nimal Siripala was cleared of the accusation and took steps to clear Nimal Siripala from all the charges.
Through this, an opinion was spread that the then-Japanese ambassador to Sri Lanka had submitted a false complaint to Gotabhaya Rajapaksa. It was the second time in recent times that Sri Lanka has tarnished Japan’s image in the face of the international community. The first was the cancellation of the light rail project running from Malabe to Fort, which had been started under very concessional conditions. Without giving any reasonable reason after Gotabhaya came to power this was cancelled. Because of this, Sri Lanka not only had to pay a large amount of compensation to Japan. Since Jayawardene’s reign, Japan, this was famous as a country that provided free aid to Sri Lanka and provided the most monetary aid for free, has become embittered with Sri Lanka.
However, neither Japan nor the Japanese ambassador went to make any statement that Ranil appointed a one-sided committee and cleared Nimal Siripala and gave him the same minister again. He tolerated the little things that happened to him. But for the first time in this regard, Japan had made comments last week. It was during the discussion held with a well-known English newspaper in Sri Lanka just before the Japanese ambassador Mr. Hidekai finished his term and left Sri Lanka.
The journalist who conducted the discussion had asked the Japanese ambassador about the allegation that Nimal Siripala demanded a bribe of 2000 lakhs from the Japanese company. There, the Japanese ambassador had commented on the incident for the first time and said that he did not want to comment on it. However, in some cases, Sri Lankan politicians expect benefits for their own interests, and they took steps to inform the relevant authorities as soon as such an incident was reported.
Money Printed?
A month after Mr. Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s government came to power, one of the most serious accusations levelled by the opposition was that it had violated the clause in the agreement with the International Monetary Fund that it should refrain from minting money and started minting money for the first time. While the opposition, as well as the social media, continued to make accusations in this regard, Minister Vijitha Herath said at the cabinet press conference held last Wednesday that the government has not done money moulding in this way, and according to the IMF agreement, it is not possible to mould the money.
Later, the Central Bank also announced in this regard, which also stated that it is not possible to mint new money. Udaya Gammanpila, while holding a press conference in this regard, said that while reading the Central Bank’s announcement carefully, the Central Bank itself has accepted that its currency has been moulded.
Later, releasing an announcement in this regard, former SJB Member of Parliament Rohini Kaviratne also said that the government has done money laundering.
However, the most special incident that came to be seen here was that although Gammanpila and Rohini Kaviratne expressed their views on this matter, neither Dr. Harsha de Silva nor Iran Wickramaratne, who appear to be sound economic experts, did not present a specific opinion in this regard that the people would feel. When asked about this in a press conference held by Harsha, said, ‘I will not talk about it’. Although Iran held several press conferences, Rohini Kaviratne’s explanation was not seen.
However, when a number of SJB MPs asked about this from Harsha and Iran for their knowledge, they told a story that the Central Bank can mold money.
Former opposition leader Mr Sajith Premadasa had also received information that new money had been printed under this background. The information is that the current government is moulding money under the normal method. Accordingly, Sajith took steps last week to hand over the information to a special committee to find out the truth or falsity of the information. Sajith has decided to present the facts to the country with correct information in this regard after receiving that information.
However, the problem here is that as the former main opposition and economic experts of the opposition, Harsha, and Eran do not offer a specific opinion on this and do not explain to the people. Accordingly, it is believed by many that Harsha and Eran will inform the country in the next few days or so.
Ranjan Dilit Clash
Recently, catching thieves has become a major topic in Sri Lanka. During former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s time, Maithripala Sirisena won the presidency by promising to catch thieves, defeating Mahinda with this pledge. However, despite his promises, Maithripala’s government ultimately fell without delivering on that goal. Later, the Malima government also came into power, vowing to recover hidden wealth and bring it back to Sri Lanka. Though it has only been in power for a month, the topic of catching thieves remains highly relevant.
Last week, this issue took on a new dimension involving Ranjan Ramanayake and Dilith Jayaweera, two candidates from different parties running in the Gampaha district. At a press conference, Dilith accused Ranjan of being caught up with a notorious figure, claiming that Ranjan’s party leader, Aliraja Subhaskaran, has been implicated in significant financial fraud.
Ranjan quickly countered Dilith’s attack, pointing to the Derana channel’s microphone at a press event and alleging that Dilith himself was an “antigen thief,” accused of serious fraud related to antigen kit imports during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ranjan further claimed that Derana promoted Gotabhaya’s rise to power through ‘Nai’ drama a biased coverage, even publicizing the controversial “Dhammika paniya” concoction, which was given to officials including the Speaker.
Though Ranjan responded strongly to Dilith’s accusations, Dilith’s side has yet to address Ranjan’s counter-claims.
