Sri Lanka's Central Bank under fire for fixing statistics

Xinhua-ANI | Yahoo! News
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Sri Lanka's Central Bank is under fire for allegedly rigging per capita income statistics to show a higher figure, a main opposition MP charged here on Thursday.

United National Party MP Harsha de Silva who is also an economist told media that the government was misleading international organizations and fellow Sri Lankans by calculating the per capita income of the country so that it would show an unrealistically high figure.

"The government is portraying the per capita income as evidence of the country's economic development but in reality it is calculated using creative accounting," he said, adding that this was a result of the Central Bank losing its independence and becoming increasingly politicized.

In 2011, Sri Lanka's per capita income was 2,836 U.S. dollars but this was calculated at 110.54 rupees a dollar, which is much lower than the average posted that year, he insisted.

Silva emphasized that the government had not taken into consideration the rapid deterioration of the rupee in November by 3 percent, which grew to a whopping 14 percent in February.

© ANI