- Says IMF agreement is with the State, not political parties
Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) parliamentarian and Parliamentary Committee on Public Finance (COPF) Chairman Dr. Harsha de Silva yesterday (10) told The Daily Morning that his request to the President was to seek an audience for the opposition with Sri Lanka’s creditors, the bondholders, and not with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) with whom the island nation has signed a bailout package.
Commenting on why opposition parties, including the SJB had turned down the offer of the President, to meet with a high-level IMF delegation in the island today (11), de Silva said: “Nobody asked for a meeting with the IMF. What I asked for was to meet the bondholders (Sri Lanka’s ISB holders), not the IMF.” He stressed that the State of Sri Lanka has already entered into an agreement with the IMF for the $ 2.9 billion Extended Fund Facility (EFF), and that irrespective of which party was in power next, they would have to honour it.
“Whatever the agreement the Government of the day enters into (with the bondholders), will have to be carried through the next. What I told the President is that his term is coming to an end, and we don’t want a second default. I am being very responsible in asking for the meeting with bondholders, we do not want to have a second default,” Dr. De Silva stressed.
Source: the morning
