Sri Lanka risks losing MCC grant if agreement signing delayed

Sri Lankan risks losing the US $ 480 million Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) grant, if the government fails to sign the Compact agreement within a month.

MCC’s newly appointed Resident Country Director Jenner Edelman told Mirror Business on the sidelines of a public discussion organised by the Pathfinder Foundation, last week, that the window is narrowing for Sri Lanka to secure the grant as the country graduated to an upper-middle income category, last July. She noted that the Sri Lankan government has an approximate window of one month to sign the agreement after obtaining the Cabinet approval.

Sri Lanka recently moved up on the World Bank’s new country classification by income level from lower-middle income category to upper-middle income category as Sri Lanka’s gross national income (GNI) per capita reached US $ 4,060. 

However, Sri Lanka was qualified and approved for the MCC Compact as a lower-middle income country with a GNI cap of US $ 3,840. MCC has already received the United States’ congressional approval to sign the Compact agreement with Sri Lanka.

Recent media reports said President Maithripala Sirisena has put on hold the MCC-Sri Lanka Compact agreement for six months. 
(NF)