Former Governor of the Central Bank Prof. WD Lakshman has been invited to a senior post in the International Monetary Fund. Funds officials have invited him to serve as the Alternative Executive Director of the Fund in his office in Washington, DC, and to take over as Governor of the Central Bank after his resignation. However, the Governor of the Central Bank Prof. WD Lakshman stated yesterday (10) that he had declined the post and that he intended to engage in leisure and engage in academic writing in the near future.
Addressing to the media yesterday (10) he also said “I have declined this attractive offer as this is against principles I cherish. I eagerly look for the leisure I will get after this retirement to be usefully spent on academic writing, which has been postponed.”
Outgoing Governor further said at the time he studied, Sri Lanka was referred to as an underdeveloped or a developing country. “We must be ashamed about ourselves for having to continue even today to call ourselves a developing country.”
“What I wanted was to become an active partner in the effort being taken to move out of this ‘developing’ status. But over nearly the last two years, I have realized that our society or our system of party politics does not have a systemic commitment to this objective. There is particularly the issue of society not being able to agree on a clear policy framework and to stick to it for a long enough period of time. This is why we lag behind, when many countries behind us are, one after the other, overtaking us in the race to achieve ‘development’. I have many things to say about matters briefly noted above,” Prof. Lakshman further said.
