Mangala debunks Ranil's claims
MINISTER Mangala Samaraweera who is also the chief campaign
coordinator of UPFA presidential candidate Mahinda Rajapakse has
expressed sympathy with Ranil Wickremesinghe for the level to which the
latter had descended in uttering falsehoods so as to suggest that the
UPFA has not been able to obtain any aid pledged at the Tokyo summit and
that he (Wickremesinghe) will be receiving a sum of Rs. 50 billion US
dollars from President George Bush, once he assumes power as the Head of
State.
Wickremesinghe according to Minister Samaraweera has stated that
foreign aid to the country will start flowing only if he (Wickremesinghe
) becomes President and that the UPFA had even failed to obtain the
Tokyo aid pledged to the country.
Issuing a media release, Minister Samaraweera said he was certain
that the people will give the UNP Presidential candidate a fitting reply
on the 17th of this month, for attempting to treat them as fools.
He said no Foreign country or lending institution considers
personalities when they decide to provide aid to a particular country.
All such aid is given to the Government of that country.
It was only the other day that former US Secretary of State Richard
Armitage stated that US aid to Sri Lanka is not in anyway influenced by
which Government was in power.
Accordingly the UPFA Government has been able obtain the US$ 4.5
billion pledged at the Tokyo summit in addition to other US$ 7.7 billion
in other foreign aid.
While US$ 4.6 billion of this will be used towards development, the
balance US$ 3.1 billion has been set apart for tsunami reconstruction
and rehabilitation, the release states.
Although according what Ranil Wickremesinghe says he can obtain aid
only from the US the above aid to the UPFA was given by countries such
as Britain and China as well in addition to America.
During the Sri Lanka Aid Group meeting in Tokyo in 2003 Sri Lanka was
pledged US$ 4.5 billion. That is for four years from 2003 to 2006. Of
this, a total of US$ 3397.5 million were loans while grants amounted to
only US$ 735.9 million.
Of these loans and grants as much as 69 per cent were from the World
Bank, ADB and the Japanese Government. The World Bank component was US$
1075 million, ADB US$ 961 dollars million and Japan one billion dollars.
Of these loans and grants Sri Lanka received US$ 431 million in 2003,
US$ 1022 million in 2004 and US$ 277 million as at September 2005.
Before the end of this year the Government is due for another US$ 475
million.
Accordingly by December 2005 Sri Lanka would have received US$ 2,205
million dollars out of the Tokyo aid package.
Therefore, while the Government has not lost even one cent of Tokyo
aid as claimed by Ranil Wickremesinghe, Sri Lanka rejected the IMF offer
made at the Tokyo summit. This is because the Government did not agreed
to their recommendations to restructure its poverty alleviation
programmes.
The IMF agreed to provider US$ 697 million towards macro economic
management. Although US$ 85 million from this was obtained in 2003 the
UPFA rejected the balance funding. This is because the Government was
not amenable to the conditions laid down by the IMF that were inimical
to the country.
These included the privatisation of water resources, retrenchment of
300,000 Government Servants, the abolition of pensions, the
privatisation of the People's Bank and the creation of a Revenue
Authority.
Minister Samaraweera questioned whether Wickremesinghe was ready to
accept these conditions to get the foreign aid that he has mentioned. |