Government preparing book on MR loans: Marasinghe

UNP MP Ashu Marasinghe told the weekly Cabinet briefing that the government was compiling a book on the loans taken by the Rajapaksa regime without informing Parliament.

“The book contains the loan details, and will be presented in Parliament once it is completed because the MPS and the people have a right to know about these transactions,” he said. “The previous government has obtained Rs.4,590 billion as loans in 2010 and by 2016 the repayment value of these loans has increased to Rs.9,429 billion. From this year alone we have been compelled to pay Rs.1,408 billion which also includes the interest for the year. In addition our local debts amount to Rs.794 billion while the foreign debt component is US$4,088 million.”

The MP said by 2018, the repayment amount would increase to Rs.1,584 billion including interest while in 2019 it would amount to Rs.1,267 billion and Rs.1,023 billion in 2020.

“Obtaining loans is not an issue as long as there is a proper resettlement plan in place. Although there were several so-called economic experts in the previous government, they were unable to prepare a proper repayment scheme,” he said and added that the Unity Government however was preparing a repayment mechanism by developing the export sector.

The MP said all countries obtain loans for development purposes but the most important factor was managing them without allowing them to get out of hand.

“This is what we lacked in the past 20 years during which most of our development projects failed to generate revenue and as a result we were burdened with a bubble economy,” he said.