The International Monetary Fund has set out in detail why it objects to Sri Lanka’s proposed anti-corruption amendments, warning that several clauses would strip out the features that made the 2023 Act effective in the first place.
Mission chief Evan Papageorgiou made the case as the Fund’s staff team ended its two-week visit without a staff-level agreement. He said the Fund supports revisiting the law to reflect lessons learned since 2023 — but not on the terms tabled in July 2026, NewsFirst reported.
The three objections
Asset declarations would become harder to use. The Fund’s concerns centre on the asset declaration framework and broader transparency mechanisms. Papageorgiou said some proposed changes would restrict how declarations may be used in a way that affects public debate and weakens accountability.
Publication would move from rules to discretion. He objected to provisions that would significantly expand official discretion over what gets published, in place of clear rules-based criteria.
Coverage would narrow. Reducing the range of people required to declare assets, he warned, would leave gaps in the transparency framework.
His message to the government, he said, is to reconsider those provisions so they do not reverse progress already made.
What the Fund credits
Papageorgiou was otherwise positive about the direction of travel. He pointed to the Anti-Corruption Act of 2023 as a landmark that strengthened the legal framework, and the Proceeds of Crimes Act of 2025 as improving asset recovery.
Sri Lanka was the first country in Asia to undergo an IMF Governance Diagnostic Assessment, a process that drew in government institutions, development partners and civil society and produced a governance action plan that is still being updated and tracked through progress reports.
He also credited work on the asset declaration regime, publication of beneficial ownership information, revenue administration, procurement transparency, and the tax exemptions framework finalised this year — which he said reduces uncertainty around concessions and narrows the space for perceptions of corruption. Studies, governance indicators and the Fund’s own consultations with civil society all point to improving perceptions, he said.
Benchmarks tied to the Seventh Review
Governance measures remain structural benchmarks under the programme. Those attached to the ongoing Seventh Review include verifying beneficial ownership information submitted to the registry, verifying information on registered companies, reducing face-to-face customs declaration reviews for authorised economic operators, and continuing to publish public procurement information.
Where this lands
The warning arrives a day after the Speaker told Parliament that the Supreme Court had found parts of the same Bill unconstitutional — including a bail-restriction clause that would need a two-thirds majority and a referendum to pass. Among the clauses the court flagged is one repealing the requirement to declare the assets of anyone who has shared a household with a declarant for more than six months, the kind of narrowing the Fund describes.
The government has framed the same provisions differently. A readout of Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya’s 22 September meeting with Papageorgiou records attention drawn to “the importance of maintaining the balance between the privacy and transparency of information” reported to the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption.
EconomyNext reported the Fund’s warning under the headline “Proposed amendments weaken Sri Lanka’s anti-corruption safeguards: IMF” the same afternoon.
