Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake, whose chosen title runs thus‘ ‘The IMF’s Remarkable Timing and a President’s Mandate for Debt Justice” …. with highlighting imposed by The Editor Thuppahi**
At Annual Meetings in Washington in October International Monetary Fund head, Kristalina Georgieva claimed Sri Lanka as a debt restructuring ‘success’ story.[i] Left unsaid was that Sri Lanka’s external debt had apparently ballooned from $26 billion to a purported whopping $100 billion during two years of “reforms’ under the IMF’s Extended Fund Facility (EFF)![ii]
A month later, the island’s newly elected Cabinet led by President Anura Kumara Dissanayaka signed off on an official “bond exchange” with International Sovereign bondholders (ISB). The President had done a U-turn on election pledges to re-negotiate agreements with the IMF and ISB that were widely perceived to be detrimental to the county.
