Why the IMF is bad for Sri Lanka, in 7 points

Tuesday, 26 April 2022 

My friend Daniel Alphonsus (previously at the Finance Ministry) listed the seven main themes of IMF intervention in Sri Lanka. He said “the themes of this final program need not be very different from the past six extended programs. But their sequencing needs to reverse.”

Daniel listed the broad things that the IMF does, and I treat it as a useful summary, not official. Daniel’s article has his own argument and you should read it, but I’ll only address these seven points here:

As noted earlier, of the two main types of IMF programs, extended facilities are the more ambitious. They last longer and are intended to rectify structural problems. When we review the six extended facilities Sri Lanka has obtained, the same themes keep propping up over the decades:

Why the IMF is Bad for Sri ... by Thavam Ratna