It has been reported that Western countries and international institutions are unhappy about President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s transparency. Although no official statement has been issued about it so far, it has been stated several times that his behavior is subject to observation. Some of the factors that influenced it are as follows
1. Upon Ranil coming to power in 2015 he appointed his school friend Arjun Mahendran as Governor of the Central Bank. Ranil’s government was involved in transactions with Perpetual Treasuries Limited, owned by Arjun Aloysius, a son-in-law of then-governor of the central bank Arjuna Mahendran.
2. Especially after the defeat of Ranil’s government in the 2018 local government elections, Ranil’s fate became unstable. That is, their defeat in the next election was certain. Then after 2018, Ranil took commercial loans through ISB at unusually high-interest rates. Because of that, the country suffered a huge loss. The details are given below
3. In 2015, Ranil’s government promised the international community to repeal the prevention of Terrorism Act. (PTA ) . Ranil’s FM noticed UNHRC that PTA is about to replace by the Counter-Terrorism Act (CTA). Nevertheless, it was just another false promise made by Ranil.
4. During Ranil’s tenure, 21 LTTT suspects and 87 IS suspects were jailed under PTA.
5. As a diplomat, Ranil failed to maintain a balance between the Indian block and the Chinese block. Ranil’s actions caused severe damage to the power balance in the region
The above facts, trust deficiency, and ambivalence about Ranil will certainly affect the approval of the IMF loan, official sources said.
