AJITH SIRIWARDANA 
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IMF audit on MR projects
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) will visit Sri Lanka next week for a joint ‘Forensic Audit’ with the Central Bank to check on the rationale behind the development projects worth US$250 billion launched by the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime just before the 2015 presidential elections, a senior cabinet minister said yesterday.
Minister Sarath Amunugama told the media the consensual government was in a dilemma as to how capital investment could be raised for those development projects because the previous regime had started these projects without a single rupee being allocated either from the Treasury or the Budget.
‘The entire programme amounting to billions of rupees just before the presidential election was a gimmick to hoodwink voters. The consensual government is trying hard to find investors for those massive development projects and it will take a minimum of five years to complete the job,” he said.
The minister warned of an economic crisis in the West especially in the EU countries consequent to the Middle East crisis. It will affect Sri Lanka badly and we must adjust our economic fundamentals to meet this threat. That is why we will have to apply for a standby arrangement on one billion US$ from the IMF.
This is the first time, the consensual government is seeking financial assistance from a global lending agency. The last SBA was approved by the IMF on July 24, 2009 for US$ 2.56 billion or 400 per cent of Sri Lanka’s quota. (Sandun A Jayasekera)
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