Bulk of 2023 foreign loans missing in state accounts:
The bulk of the foreign loans received during 2023 is missing and not accounted for in the Finance Ministry’s annual report for 2023, the Auditor General’s audit report, contained in the same report, has revealed.
Apart from loan agreements, the total of US$90.6 million was received by way of Official Development Assistance through 10 grant agreements signed with Japan, the US, European Union, Korea, and the IDA in 2023.
Total foreign financing disbursements during the period from 1st January to 31st December 2023 amounted to $2,568.7 million. Of which, $2,510.3 million was disbursed as loans and $58.4 million as grants.
The ministry’s 2023 accounts scrutinised by the Auditor General, has revealed that that Department of State Accounts of the ministry has not accounted a substantial amount of foreign loans received in 2023.
The government audit has found that the total value of unaccounted foreign loans as of 31 December 2023 was Rs.17,103.2 million.
Since there were loan values that were disbursed, but not accounted in the year under review and the previous years, the value of the statement of financial position as at 31 December 2023 had been understated by Rs. 15,823 million, the audit report highlighted. Official sources said Sri Lanka’s foreign financial account has been negative in 2023 while finance ministry data showed the gap between foreign financing and disbursement amounted to $ – 463.2 million.
This was mainly due to halting of financing by the government by bilateral lenders and the servicing of multilaterals debt, and counterparties refusal to roll over bank’s credit lines, the ministry annual report 2023 highlighted.
The government obtained foreign financing of $2,120.5 million by entering into 16 agreements with foreign development partners and lending agencies during the year 2023, of which, $2,029.9 million was in the form of loans.
This consists of the $728.1 million under the IMF-EFF arrangement and $550.0 million for the Economic Stabilisation programme.
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