"With the budget announced on Monday directing the Central Bank to depreciate the rupee by 3% with immediate effect, civil society including the media, academia, business, professionals and economic/financial analysts must request the Central Bank and the Monetary Board, being Accountable for the policy decisions taken over the last 4- 6 months in regard to the exchange rate policy, to justify with Transparency and Integrity the strategic action taken by them and also any lessons learnt from the experiences in the context of a post audit on management effectiveness of the policy regime adopted," Jayaratne said.
He said the following information was "essential for a transparent intellectual discussion to be held in the interest of all stakeholders of the nation";
1. The value of market interventions made by the Central Bank monthly over the past six months, in purchasing and selling its foreign exchange holdings
2. The Net foreign exchange reserves of the Central Bank at the end of each of the past six months
3. Sri Lanka Rupee Us Dollar cross rate end of each month over the last six months
4. US Dollar Cross rate in International markets versus the competing other currencies of Euro, GBP, Japanese Yen, Indian Rupee
5. The rationale and justification for the Budget announcement driven depreciation of the Rupee by 3% as against the expected market oriented float of the Rupee, in a context where as the US Dollar was gaining upwards in the market against other international currencies in the weeks ahead ( The gain over the last 3 days of the US dollar against the Euro being around 1%) and Indian Rupee was depreciating against the Dollar ( By over 5 % in a month )
"It is essential that the above information and justification be available early, in order that civil society groups mentioned earlier can express their view point well in time for the Committee Stage Debate in the Parliament involving legislators from the Government and Opposition who can then engage in an intellectual value adding debate around section 74 of the 2012 Budget, enriched by the views of Civil Society," Jayaratne said.
"The above intellectual debate as well as integrity and transparency oriented transparent accountability by the Central Bank and the Monetary Board is paramount, as it is commonly believed that the Central Bank had in the last two months and similarly even in the previous three months had made market interventions linked transactions of US$ 500 million," he said.
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