Will the government be able to meet the IMF’s six-month review requirement?

G 20 summit Ali Sabry and Milinda ?

LG elections in April, August or never in this year!

Will SL be forced to restructure its internal debt?

It has recently been learned that the government is planning to celebrate another major festival prior to the Sinhala and Hindu New Year celebrations. It is simply the announcement that the International Monetary Fund has approved the loan amount to be granted to Sri Lanka.

As a result, prior to the festival’s celebration, the government took steps to publicise a variety of other events as pre-events. One of them was to demonstrate to the country that the US dollar was collapsing against the rupee and that the rupee was strengthening.

Appreciation of SLR

Accordingly, since the beginning of last week, all government media and private media related to the government have jointly carried out a massive campaign, and it has been seen that the strengthening of the rupee has started, and through this, the country’s economy is getting stronger again, day and night. This propaganda was so strong that in fact, the majority of the people of the country were deceived by this propaganda and deceived that the rupee has started to rise again. B

Stable economy

Deceived that the economy is getting stronger. To tell the truth, the people were not deceived by this propaganda, but it is correct to say that the people were deceived once again by the media that took the initiative. Because, this time too, the same media took the lead in deceiving the people as in 2019 and deceived the people to bring Gotabhaya to power. This time, it was seen that the Sinhala and English newspaper network belonging to the President’s uncle were also involved. Accordingly, it was seen that all these media groups were preparing the way for the grand feast of the government and continuously published news that the rupee would strengthen and the country would become self-sufficient.

Fitch rating

But like in 2019, this year too, the ‘Mawrata’ newspaper and the ‘Mawrata’ website continued to expose the truth to the people and said that the rupee is not strong as the government says, and that the rupee is going to suffer a severe crash very soon. Confirming the disclosure we made, last week Fitch Ratings, a well-known website on international financial affairs, published special news and made a special prediction about the fall in the value of the rupee. This is how we published the news in our Mawrate.com website..

Depreciate up to Rs. 390

Fitch Ratings predicts that the Sri Lankan Rupee, which has achieved high strength in the first quarter of the year, will fall again by the end of the year amid hopes of the approval of the International Monetary Fund’s credit facility. Although the credit facility of the International Monetary Fund may be approved soon, the economic crisis and local government elections will create an obstacle in the country to stay on the agreements reached with the International Monetary Fund, says Fitch Ratings.

Fitch Ratings has estimated that the value of one dollar will increase to 390 rupees by the end of the year.

In this way, even Fitch Ratings reported that the rupee would fall again, but many of the people who fell in love with the government’s media propaganda said that it was completely false. They said that such slanders are spread by people who cannot accept the rise of the rupee and the rise of the economy. Fitch Ratings is crazy.

Accurate prediction

But after showing that our findings and Fitch Ratings’ predictions were 100% successful, the rupee started falling again within a few days. As usual, the dollar was seen rising rapidly. Accordingly, ‘Nai ‘Media, which deceived the people by propagating lies, and the Sinhala and English newspaper network owned by the president’s family relatives, like ostriches hiding their heads in the sand, were publishing this news from top to bottom exceeding the amount of publicity given to the original news.

Artificial rise

But the problem is not the publication of news like this to deceive the people, but the misuse of the main economic centres of the country for political purposes. We say this because a serious question has been raised about who decided to artificially raise the rupee. There is a serious debate about whether the decision was taken by the central bank or whether the decision was taken by the political authority. However, the 400 million US dollar swap facility received by Sri Lanka the other day had influenced the sudden rise of the rupee. As a result, the rupee has risen, but the government will have to devalue the rupee in the future according to the conditions given by the International Monetary Fund. Accordingly, many economic analysts point out that there will be a risk of further collapse of the rupee in the future.

 20th March

However, just as we reported this information regarding the rupee, we are ready to present another special disclosure to the readers of ‘Rajya Rahas’ this time about a discussion regarding the International Monetary Fund. The information is that on the 20th of this month, the International Monetary Fund is ready to approve the loan to Sri Lanka, and as the first step, it is planned to release the initial instalment of 350 million dollars. It is learned that it is expected to be received within two to three days after the loan approval is announced.

Is IMF grant the panecia

However, it has been seen that another big lie is being propagated by the media in this country regarding this loan amount. It is that after Sri Lanka received this first instalment of the financial fund, steps have been taken to highlight this in the same way that it received the ‘Veda Papa’s Magic Arishta’, which would solve all the country’s problems. Many media as well as powerful politicians related to the government are currently spreading through the media that Sri Lanka is going to receive a loan amount of 2 billion dollars from Japan and a loan amount of 4 billion dollars from the Asian Development Bank as soon as the first installment of the financial fund is received, and after that all the problems of Sri Lanka will be solved.

Lie told 9 months ago!

This kind of big lie was being propagated by UNP leaders even before Mr. Ranil Wickramasinghe became the Prime Minister. There they said that within 48 hours of Ranil becoming the Prime Minister of the country, 2 billion dollars will be received from Japan, and many other countries are ready to give money to Sri Lanka. But ‘Mawrata’ newspaper as well as our website had pointed out at that moment that Sri Lanka would not receive dollars because Ranil assume power as the UNP leaders claimed. Confirming the news that we have said, although 9 months have passed since Ranil came to power, Sri Lanka has still not received a single dollar from Japan. The only thing that happened was that the huge Japanese companies that had started projects in Sri Lanka, such as Mitsubishi and Taisei, also left Sri Lanka.

IMF first review in 6 months

Going in the same way, this time too, the media narcissists in our country are saying these days that as soon as the first instalment of the financial fund is received, dollars will rain on Sri Lanka from all over the world. Accordingly, this time we are ready to make a special disclosure regarding the first loan instalment of the financial fund from the ‘Rajya Rahas’ column. It is about the first review to be done within a period of 06 months after the first instalment of the Financial Fund is given to Sri Lanka. This review is scheduled to be conducted in the second week of September. In fact, in order to receive the first tranche of the financial fund, Sri Lanka had fulfilled only a number of minor conditions in the first stage.

What is in the second stage?

The most serious matters are included in the second stage. That is, there are many serious conditions that the Government of Sri Lanka will have to fulfil in the next 6 months after receiving the first instalment. The first is to start negotiations with international creditors on debt restructuring. At present, all the main creditor countries of Sri Lanka have given the International Monetary Fund only the letter that they are ready to restructure the debt.

Accordingly, after the release of the first loan instalment, discussions should be started with all those countries on how to restructure these loans. The most serious problem here is when the debt restructuring talks with China starts. Because all other countries have agreed to restructure Sri Lanka’s debt without specifying a period, but China has informed the IMF through its letter that it agrees to restructure the debt for a period of two years only.

Challenge to China

 Accordingly, China is preparing to add other creditor countries that have given loans to Sri Lanka to its position in these negotiations. But other countries are ready to add China to their position.

However, we took steps last week to make a special disclosure about a condition that China is prepared to present in these talks. We stated that before asking the International Monetary Fund to ask China to restructure Sri Lanka’s debt, the IMF, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and other institutions should restructure loans given to other countries and demonstrate. As a result, debt restructuring negotiations may be more difficult than anticipated.

Restructure domestic debt?

But this is not the most serious matter here. According to the information we have, we have received information that the International Monetary Fund and Sri Lanka’s creditors are ready to present another serious condition in these negotiations. There they are ready to restructure the domestic debt before restructuring the foreign debt. This condition is the most serious condition that can be expected to be presented in the negotiations. Then it will be necessary to restructure and show the loans taken by the Government of Sri Lanka from the banking system of the country through treasury bonds and treasury bills etc.

Instability in the banking system

Economic analysts in Sri Lanka have pointed out that if such a condition were to arise, the government would definitely have to write off about 20% of the loans taken from the Sri Lankan banking system at once. Those economic analysts are of the opinion that if the government has to make such a cut because it is a sum of billions of rupees, there may be a risk of serious instability in the banking system.

High risk

On the other hand, many people are of the opinion that there is a risk of cutting off the billions of loans that the government has taken from the Employees’ Provident Fund. If that happens, the Employees’ Provident Fund will also face a serious crisis. Accordingly, there is now a serious question mark as to whether it will be possible to fulfill these conditions. If these are not done, after the first six months have passed, a serious problem will undoubtedly arise regarding the release of the second installment during the review to be conducted by the financial fund in September.

Can we celebrate on 20th ?

Accordingly, after the 20th, Sri Lanka will not have a period to celebrate, but a period to be spent with great difficulty. We are now revealing this to the country based on the information we have received that the people of the country are also taking this very lightly and are ready to hold celebrations due to the dances of the government and some media. Or to remind the media narcissists who are ready to ball and celebrate after receiving the first instalment of the financial fund saying that everything is fine. So that the country will not suffer the destruction that happened when the people of the country were deceived by Mr. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa due to the dances of the media and the entire country fell to the point of bankruptcy.

On the other hand, we had reported information in this column last week that even though the discussions of the Financial Fund continued based on the receipt of the Chinese letter, the fact that the two-year period of the letter was recorded is the beginning of a serious crisis. It is not that the government does not know this.

Because of this, we have mentioned that the government has been trying to discuss this matter with the Chinese authorities for the last two or three weeks. In particular, the President had tried several times to make a phone call to Chinese President Xi Jinping, but he was not able to succeed in that effort until last week. However, if these negotiations are successful in the next six months and the problems are not resolved before the six-month review, the situation will be very serious.

President’s Indian visit

On the other hand, due to the fact that the President has received an invitation to visit India, the President plans to leave for India in the last week of March after receiving the loan from the President’s Financial Fund. After the end of that visit to India, balancing the international politics, the President’s plan is to visit China as well. But the President’s visit to India is currently on the fence due to the fact that there has been no successful response from China.

Elections or no elections

During all this, the President had initially planned to hold the next year’s presidential election and hold the general election after that and the local government election after that, regardless of the pressure. This came out from the mouths of the heads of the government on many occasions, and they put forward the lack of money and said that local government elections will not be held in March or April, and that a presidential election is scheduled to be held next year. We also took steps to report this in the ‘State Secrets’ belt last time.

However, even though the government had planned to unfold the election map in that way, it was officially seen last week how the international influence is growing in a manner that neither the government nor the leaders of the government had imagined regarding the holding of the local government elections. It was also a special event to see how it was emerging in various avenues.

American voice on LG election

The most important event was reported last week at the event held at the Cinnamon Grand Hotel in Colombo with the participation of the top people in the legal field. Mrs. Julie Chang, the American ambassador to Sri Lanka, also participated in this ceremony which was presided over by Chief Justice Jayantha Jayasuriya. There she made a very controversial speech and emphasized that the independence of the judiciary should be protected and the local government elections should be conducted in a proper manner.

Cautious period

In addition, generally the International Monetary Fund does not adhere to political agendas while giving loans, but it does pay attention to the existence of democracy. Accordingly, if the government acts in an undemocratic manner by postponing the elections within the six-month review period of the financial fund, it cannot be prevented from adversely affecting the functioning of the financial fund. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the government to pass that period very carefully.

In addition to this, many other powerful countries in the world have already notified the government to hold the local government elections through various ways.

LG elections in August ?

Under this background, it can be seen that the local government elections, which are ready to be postponed until next year, have to be held this year anyway. Accordingly, this time through the ‘Rajya Rahas’ column, we are very responsibly stating that regardless of what tactics are used, the government will definitely have to hold local elections within the next few months. It is not that the president is not aware of this situation. Accordingly, the president has changed his plans and decided to postpone the local government election until next August and hold it in August. It has also been seen that steps have already been taken to inform the international forces on the part of the President.

Immunity

However, the issue is whether the president can drag out the local government elections till August or not. The court has already given 2 rulings to provide the necessary environment for the local government election to be held as scheduled. The Election Commission is also ready to hold the election on the scheduled date if it gets the necessary support from other institutions. Although the constitution provides immunity from prosecution against the President if the court order is not followed, the opposition is ready to file a case against these responsible officers under the charge of contempt of court because other officials do not have such immunity.

Parliamentary privileges committee

Apart from this, the government has implemented several other strategies to postpone the election. One of the main ones is the attempt to summon the Chairman of the Election Commission to the Parliament’s Privileges Committee and question them about the judicial judges saying that the privileges of the members of Parliament have been violated through the court order.

A member of the government, Premanath Dolawatta, and Minister of State Shehan Semasinghe presented the related proposal to the Parliament, where the opposition emphasized that the government is trying to interfere with the independence of the judiciary, is working to intimidate the judges, and is working to create an unnecessary conflict between the legislature and the judiciary. that there is In addition to this, last Thursday, Mr. Sajith Premadasa, the leader of the opposition, made a special disclosure and said that the Privileges Committee of the Parliament has already sent a letter to the Supreme Court requesting the order regarding the local government elections.

Delimitation commission

Also, last week we pointed out that the government has launched an operation to postpone the local government election through the former commissioner of the Election Commission, Mahinda Deshapriya. As a result, the president appointed a new delimitation commission and handed over the chairmanship to Mahinda Deshapriya, and even though he had retired, Mahinda Deshapriya again submitted an application for the chairmanship of the Election Commission.

Opposition on the act

When the government made plans to somehow postpone the election in this way, the opposition did not stand idly by. In particular, Mr. Sajith Premadasa, the leader of the opposition, spent the last week in conversation with the party about the legal and other matters to be done to hold the election on schedule. Accordingly, the opposition leader left for Kandy at the beginning of last week to meet the Malwatu Asgiri Maha Nahimi to inform them about this anti-democratic conspiracy program being carried out by the government.

Due to some problematic situations that happened in the past, Malwatu Maha na himi had temporarily suspended his meetings with politicians, but after Mr. Ranil Wickramasinghe assumed the office of President, he took steps to give times to meet with him twice upon his request. However, according to a request made by the opposition leader, Malwatu Maha Nahimi took steps to allocate time to meet him.

Meeting with Malwatu – Asgiri prelates

Accordingly, in this discussion, Sajith took the step to give a long explanation to the Malwatu Prelate and the Asgiri Prelate separately about this anti-democratic process being carried out by the government and the adverse results that may arise from it. There, the great prelates of both chapters said that they also accept this comment. Accordingly, they informed Sajith that they will discuss with the Trininika chief Theroes and make a statement in this regard.

Chief prelates’ statements

However, it is a noteworthy that Sajith took care not to reveal this notification made by the chief prelates to anyone anywhere. Accordingly, last Tuesday, the Trinikayas chief Prelates issued an announcement to the President, which indicated that the government should take steps to conduct the local government elections properly. However, only the ‘Mawrata’ website took steps to reveal the election-related part included in the announcement of the chief prelates to the country, but all other media left that part and gave publicity to other matters in the article, which was a special event.

Cardinal’s press briefing

In addition to the great prelates, last week Archbishop Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith also held a public press conference and took steps to emphasize that the government should hold the local elections immediately. There, he said that the government should not violate the democratic rights of the people and that the elections should be held as scheduled. Also, the fact that the government was preparing to put pressure on the court by raising issues of privilege was also a matter that was seriously criticized by him.

G 20 special session in India

A few days ago, steps were taken to hold a special conference of the leaders of the G-20 summit in New Delhi, India. Mr. Ali Sabry, Foreign Minister, represented Sri Lanka. This occasion was more important for Sri Lanka because it was the first time that a foreign minister representing Sri Lanka would visit India after Mr. Ranil Wickramasinghe assumed the office of President. Therefore, Sabry’s participated in the discussion with the aim of unveiling many important issues regarding Sri Lanka at the conference.

HC boycott meeting the minister?

But Sabri’s landing in New Delhi was not a good experience for him. Usually, if a foreign minister of a country goes to another country, the ambassador representing that country comes and welcomes the foreign minister. Accordingly, when Sabry landed from New Delhi, he thought that Mr. Milinda Moragoda, the High Commissioner of Sri Lanka in India, would be present at the New Delhi airport. But something completely different happened. Instead of Milinda’s, another junior officer of the High Commission came to the airport to welcome Sabiry. During the search, Sabry came to know that Milind had come to Sri Lanka from India when a special conference like G-20 was held in New Delhi. Accordingly, Sabry had to face a severe discomfort at the airport.

However, when the information about this incident spread in the diplomatic field, many diplomats called Sabry and asked if this story was true or not, and told him to complain to the President about it. There, Sabry gave the same answer to all of them.

That story is true. ‘But what to do? I’m sorry not for the problem I got from this, but for the damage done to the country…’ was Sabry’s answer there.

13th Amendment

Meanwhile, another topic that turned the political field upside down in the past was the 13th constitutional amendment. This was very controversial with the announcement that the president would suddenly implement the 13th constitutional amendment on Independence Day and take steps to give powers to the North and East. Accordingly, although some objections arose in the south, the President ignored them and took steps to hold several rounds of talks with the Tamil National Alliance in Colombo. The President also took steps to inform Mr.S.  Jaishankar indian foreign minister about this when he came to Sri Lanka. Accordingly, everyone thought that this time the president would definitely implement the 13th constitutional amendment with land and police powers to the north.

Special discussion

However, recently a special discussion was held in this regard at the Presidential Secretariat. In addition to the President, Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena, Prasanna Ranatunga, Wijayadasa Rajapaksa and Cabinet Ministers Ali Sabryi were also present. The discussion was about the implementation of the 13th constitutional amendment as promised by the government to India. According to the information that we have received, Mr. Wijayadasa Rajapaksa and Mr. Ali Sabry have expressed their opinion in this discussion giving approval that the 13th constitutional amendment should be implemented.

However that Dinesh and Prasanna had told this is not the time to discuss the 13th Amendment this could lead to unnecessary problems. It is learned that the President has not commented about the 13th Amendment. Finally the discussion had ended not in favour of the implementation of the 13th Amendment. Accordingly, the amendment should be implemented.

Rajapaksa family reunion

We reported last week in Rajya Rahas column about the Rajapase family reunion. We revealed how former President Mahinda Rajapaksa launched his campaign to become Prime Minister once more. The first public meeting in this regard was held in Moneragala, with Shasindra Rajapakse, a prominent member of the family, in charge of organising the rally. Basil chose this mover after carefully weighing the pros and cons. As a result, the family decided to groom Shasindra Rajapakse as the family’s next political stronghold. Apart from Mahinda, Shiranthi and Namal appear dissatisfied with this move. Shiran’s goal is for Namal to be given this position.

Shasindra, on the other hand, was able to draw a large crowd to the inaugural meeting, which was aimed at re-electing Mahinda as Prime Minister. It was reported to be the most successful rally the pohottuwa had ever staged. The most significant incident was that, despite the fact that Mahinda arrived for the rally, Namal did not. Disagreements within the Rajapaksa family resurfaced in this Monaragal rally.

Mahinda’s efforts to unite Pohottuwa

Meanwhile, Mahinda’s efforts are clear in that he is attempting to gather all Pohottuwa MPs who have been left directionless for some time. Furthermore, Mahinda has decided to host all future Pohottuwa MP’s meetings at his Wijerama residence. This house was recently renovated with millions of rupees of  state funds. A special hall built in this hose will be used for Pohottuwa parliamentarians’ meetings. Rajapakse speculates that despite having 95 Pohottuwa MPs in parliament,  a few are close to the president, and that a sizable portion could be spit in various directions. Rajya Rahas Column understands Rajapakse’s intention to rally all of these people, organise them, and bind them together beginning in May or June.

Super grade MPs

The State secret column understands that some super grade MPs have emerged within the government. Those MPs promote their loyal constituents to the position of Minister and live a more luxurious lifestyle than the ministers. One such MP will be revealed in this Rajya Rahas column. This MP is currently residing in a high-end apartment in a world-class hotel in the heart of Colombo.

This hotel has a fascinating backstory. During Rajapakse’s reign, the allocation of land for the construction of this hotel caused quite a stir.

As a result, a powerful Rajapakse had lived in this hotel’s flat for a long time and even maintained his office and official duties from there. The local owner of this hotel is a close associate of the Rajapakse family and has struck deals with the current government even after Rajapakse’s fall.

However, these days, all eyes are on the government MP who is living the high life in the hotel’s flat. This MP is said to frequently travel from his apartment to another luxurious apartment located nearby. During these visits, his six security officers are seen frequently providing security to a young man travelling from this second apartment to the gymnasium. This has been the topic of discussion in government circles recently.

By Special a correspondent

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