There is a feeling of déjà vu along the Coromandel coast. The latest boatload of Sri Lankan Tamilians arrived a few days ago. Only, this time they were fleeing from financial hardship. The double whammy of poorly designed organic farming policies and the pandemic’s devastating impact on Sri Lanka’s tourism sector (not to mention the Chinese debt trap the country is in) is to blame for this migration in search of inexpensive bread, butter and fuel. Once a sterling example of high levels of human development, this emerald of the Indian Ocean now feels compelled to seek external aid to buy essential supplies. The family enterprise that leads their government knocked on India’s doors, amongst others, for a bailout package.
In order to help Sri Lanka tide over this crisis, India has offered lines of credit (LoC), including a $500 million loan to buy petroleum products. Representatives of the Export Import Bank of India (Exim Bank), the primary agency for routing this assistance, travelled to Colombo to complete the paperwork. According to the bank’s press note, about $2.18 billion has been extended to Sri Lanka, through 10 LoCs, till date. By posting this information and an event photograph on its website, Exim Bank thought it had done enough for the cause of proactive transparency. The press note mentions the name and contact details of the Bank’s Chief General Manager for seeking further information.
Last month, I submitted an RTI application to Exim Bank seeking copies of all these LoC agreements, related correspondence, and file notings. Its Public Information Officer (PIO) rejected the request invoking secrecy on four counts, namely: a) economic interest of the State (without mentioning which State, as there are two involved in these deals); b) protection for the commercial confidence related matters of the bank (whose share capital comes out of Indian taxpayer funds); c) information received in confidence from the foreign State; and d) fiduciary relationship, i.e, privileged information received in a trust-based relationship that requires maintenance of confidentiality (taxpaying citizens apparently cannot be taken into confidence in such matters).
Ironically, the PIO gave the name and contact details of another Chief General Manager before whom his decision may be contested within 30 days.
Exim Bank’s response does not come as a surprise. It rejected more than 17% of the 175 RTI applications received in 2020-21 -- the first year of the pandemic. This is more than four times the average rate of rejections across the central government. Interestingly, the number of RTIs received by the bank had more than trebled over the previous year’s tally. It had rejected 10 RTI applications that year.
What is ironic about this episode is the lack of uniformity of practice across government. In 2020, through RTI, I received comprehensive datasets about India’s external borrowings from the Finance Ministry. Information about development assistance received from countries like the US, France, Japan and Russia, including support for Covid relief and rehabilitation programmes was supplied free of cost.
India’s loan agreements with the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank are proactively disclosed on their respective websites. Anybody may download them for free. But Exim Bank treats its financial dealings with foreign countries as sarkari secrets. An examination of its website also reveals inadequate compliance with its voluntary disclosure obligations under the RTI Act.
While I appeal the bank’s decision, I hope Sri Lanka’s activists use their RTI Act to ensure transparency in these financial dealings. Having avoided the loopholes of India’s transparency law, their RTI Act is rated the fourth best in the world -- four notches above our own. Whether it is strong enough to dig out the LoC agreements remains to be seen.
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