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‘We-can-spend’ theme at Tokyo
The Government's senior-most financial experts were despatched by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe ahead of tomorrow's crucial Tokyo aid conference to convince donor countries that Sri Lanka had the "capacity to absorb" foreign financial assistance to rebuild its war-ravaged economy.

Led by Central Bank Governor A.S. Jayawardena and Finance Ministry Secretary Charitha Ratwatte and including officials of the Policy Development Ministry which comes under the Prime Minister, a Sri Lankan contingent was already in the Japanese capital doing the ground-work for the pledge of an estimated US dollars 3 billion for the next three years from the two-day conference.

A spokesman for the Prime Minister's Office told The Sunday Times the Government hoped that the Tokyo aid conference would proceed to make commitments for the North and East despite the LTTE's boycott of the aid meeting.
Upto last night the LTTE had refused to budge from its original stance of boycotting the aid conference.

Sri Lanka's main concern at tomorrow's Tokyo conference is not only to show that the peace process with the LTTE is on track despite the LTTE intransigence, but also that the Government is capable of "absorbing" the funds that will be pledged for economic development.

Towards this end, the Sri Lankan delegation now in Tokyo is to ask the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank to design papers to fast-track the implementation process of new development projects both in the North and East as well as the South.

The fast-tracking process is aimed at cutting down the near two-year complicated procedures to a possible seven-month period. "One of the main drawbacks for the country has been not so much the availability of foreign funding, but the ability to use the monies," the spokesman said.

The Sri Lankan delegation is expected to take up the position that Government Ministries are no longer capable of drawing up all the proposals, and that 'outsourcing' such exercises would be on the cards soon.

Technical Evaluation Committees that delay on deadlines could face penalties under some drastic revamping mechanisms envisaged to speed up development projects.

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