The International Monetary Fund in Sri Lanka : A Critical Dialogue

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has approved a US $253 million standby credit facility to Sri Lanka on April 20, 2001, to stabilise the macroeconomic fundamentals. The Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) should be commended for requesting the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to make the stand-by arrangement a public document, hence facilitating public scrutiny. However, there are some critical discrepancies in the statistical data, inter alia, presented in the IMF Country Report No.01/71 (citing “Sri Lankan Authorities”) compared to Annual Reports of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL). These anomalies are highlighted with examples regarding defence expenditure, poverty reduction programmes, and public service recruitment