Forty (40) Trade Unions, Mass Organisations, economists, lawyers and activists from six countries (Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia and Indonesia) held an event to discuss the debt crisis and explain how it is impacting working people.

The meeting focussed on forming a resolution on the Transnational Movement of Working People committed to fighting debt injustice.

The event was hosted by UNITE, a coalition of Trade Unions and Mass Organisations in Sri Lanka, on Friday, March 01, 2024.

The participants discussed the many similarities in debt situations across Asia where authoritarian Governments have taken on debt to enrich local elites, and then burden working people with the consequences of inequitable debt repayment. These consequences include labour law reforms aimed at weakening organized labour and labour protections, continuing to pay starvation wages to workers, dispossessing farmers and fishers through personal debt, selling strategic state assets and exposing third-world nations to unregulated financial flows resulting in economic instability. As participants noted, working people in third-world countries do not consent to these debt undertakings yet suffer the most from their consequences.

A draft statement against debt which continues to trap third world nations and keep them in a state of perpetual underdevelopment was prepared and then discussed by the participants of the meeting. The immediate necessity to arrest the deteriorating economic situations in all countries and corner the rise of the far-right which divides working people by exploiting social divisions among ethnicity, caste and gender was also discussed. 

The participants also condemned the horrendous genocide taking place in Palestine and supported the call for a free Palestine. Palestine serves as a living reminder to working people across the world to come together to fight the fascism of governments such as Israel’s as duly supported by Western governments. The imperialist system they uphold continues the colonization project by suffocating third-world peoples through unsustainable debt and vulture capitalism, failing which it resorts to genocidal wars. (NewsWire)

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Former Central Bank Governor Dr. Indrajit Coomarasamy has warned that Sri Lanka must not return to its old ways by providing subsidiaries.

Addressing an event, Dr. Coomarasamy said subsidizing fuel, electricity, fertilizer, etc. would draw back Sri Lanka and is an unsustainable move. 

“It is unsustainable. We don’t have the money to do it. To borrow money from abroad and to put it into that kind of activity you just end up in a debt crisis. Because you don’t have the ability to earn the foreign exchange to pay that money back,” he said. 

On addressing poverty, the former Central Bank Governor said cash transfers, such as Samurdhi which is now Aswasuma, could be used as short-term methods.

He explained that it was recommended to implement the ‘Aswasuma’ welfare benefit programme earlier as it would help people cope with the austerity that is coming down the line and it would also help to buy support for the reforms. 

“We didn’t do that. And now we seem to be politicising it all over again. It is in a bit of a mess. We need to do that right. Again we have slipped back to the same mistakes,” he said. 

Dr. Coomarasamy further said Sri Lanka can do better in terms of identifying and targeting in a transparent way for the welfare scheme.

Emphasizing the need for technology, he said technology, such as the introduction of a unique digital ID, can reduce leakages by a great margin but was being resisted at every turn for manipulation.

The former Central Bank Governor said these measures could help Sri Lanka come out of the current crisis. (NewsWire)

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