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Manusha claims an IMF timeline even earlier than President, CBSL Governor

26 Jul 2022

  • Says staff-level agreement was scheduled for first week of August but delayed by protests
A staff-level agreement was set to be reached between Sri Lanka and the International Monetary Fund, but has now been delayed due to the protests and the chaotic situation in the country fuelled by revolutionaries, claimed Minister of Labour and Foreign Employment Manusha Nanayakkara. “The staff-level agreement that was to be reached between the IMF and Sri Lanka in the first week of August, and the money that we were to receive due to that agreement, has been delayed due to the chaotic situation in the country,” he said yesterday (25). He also said that assistance from the World Food Programme (WFP) has also been delayed due to this reason. “The leader of the World Food Programme, who was scheduled to visit Sri Lanka last Saturday (23), did not arrive, and that visit has been delayed by a month. They were prepared to provide food to the Sri Lankan people for three months. But we will try to get that support.” However, the IMF timeline presented by Nanayakkara differs from the one articulated by President Ranil Wickremesinghe when he was Prime Minister earlier this month. “Once a staff-level agreement is reached, this will be submitted to the IMF Board of Directors for approval. But due to the state of bankruptcy that our country is in, we have to submit a plan on our debt sustainability to them separately. Only when they are satisfied with that plan can we reach an agreement at the staff level,” the then-PM had told Parliament previously. “This is not a straightforward process. This is being prepared by the financial and legal experts Lazard and Clifford Chance. We hope to submit this report to the IMF by August. Once this is done, we will be able to reach an agreement. However, even after this agreement, it must be presented to the IMF Board of Directors for approval. After approval for this plan is provided, a comprehensive loan assistance programme will be prepared for a period of four years. We are now on that path.”  


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