Sri Lanka’s bankrupt economy has “no alternative” but to stick to the current USD 2.9 billion IMF bailout programme, central bank governor Nandalal Weerasinghem has said.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved the release of the second tranche worth USD 337 million to Sri Lanka earlier this month.
Weerasinghe was responding to queries if the island nation was open to renegotiating the terms of the four-year programme on the back of claims by opposition parties that they would renegotiate conditions for the IMF's USD 2.9 billion bailout package.
“There is no alternative. The fact that we attempted alternatives was why we are here (bankruptcy) now,” Weerasinghe told reporters on Friday.
“We have to go in the same path, say, if the period of debt restructuring allowed is 10 years – if they (opposition) want to change it, the creditors can say, we don’t support this anymore. If we were to leave the programme, we will have to pay USD 6 billion a year in repayments,” Weerasinghe said.
Weerasinghe was repeating what President Wickremesinghe said on December 17. “There was no alternative to the IMF programme for the cash-strapped island nation to get out of its economic bankruptcy,” Wickremesinghe, who is also the Finance Minister, said as he responded to the strong criticism from the opposition to the reforms.
