Cabraal sings flat to Basil’s new tune
Central Bank Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal continues to remain intransigent in his stance not to seek IMF help even at this eleventh hour. He sees no need for an IMF bailout to salvage the nation from the economic wreck. He pins his hopes on a homegrown fix to solve the perennial dollar crisis which has now turned terminal.
Flushed pink over last week’s success in paying off USD 500 million of the sovereign bond debt, he does not pale before the Herculean task of finding a further USD 7 billion to settle the international debt this year.
Instead, brimming with confidence, he dismisses calls for debt restructuring with IMF support, and, ruling out the need to restructure the debt with help from foreign third parties, he says: ‘the country’s best brains in the Monetary Policy Consultative Committee are working on it. Policy decisions are shaped and reshaped by experts and 870 qualified professionals working at the Central Bank.’
That may be so. But the people are being asked to take the word of one man alone -- Nivard Cabraal’s - that all will be well soon, though all they can presently see is the nation’s lights going out, one by one.
Can we trust Cabraal’s word, solely rely on Cabraal’s pledge to deliver the goods, in the manner farmers trusted Agriculture Minister Aluthgamage’s promise of a handsome harvest with organic fertiliser, only to end ruined? If their past track record had brought us to this pauperised pass, can we, in blind faith, still wait in prayer for the banking messiah and his brainy band of 870 savants lead us to the promised El Dorado?
For no matter the economic jugglery performed by these top brains at
Central Bank, the bottom line is that the Treasury must have a surfeit of dollars in its present dimeless coffers – USD 7 billion to honour the nation’s international debt; and more to pay its import bill.
So can Cabraal’s secret recipe of home grown ingredients cough up the dough? The Finance Minister Basil
Rajapaksa does not think so anymore and has now begun to have second thoughts.
After being the first of the agnostics not to believe in the saving grace of the IMF, adversity seems to have beckoned his insight to place him on the stoic road to Washington. He seems to have undergone a remarkable transformation of faith when he told the London Financial Times on Wednesday that he is now willing to consider all options, even ‘ think about a programme with the IMF.’
That’s far better, and more realistic, than depending on Cabraal and his brainy band to conjure up USD 7 billion from their magical hats
So why is Basil still tarrying? Lanka’s economic Doomsday clock ticks ominously and time is of the essence. Or, as SUNDAY PUNCH said last week, is he waiting for the people to be hurling halfway down the precipice to belatedly shout for IMF help?