Sri Lanka is currently facing an acute economic crisis. One of the main issues is the high inflation. As announced by the Department of Census and Statistics, the country’s inflation has risen to 60.8% in July this year. Simultaneously, the announcement issued by the Central bank of Sri Lanka, here. In such a background, economists including the Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka expressed their views on the economy including issues such as, “What are the reasons for the high inflation situation that has never been faced before? What are the possible effects of this? How about future inflation forecasts?”.
In such an environment, we have observed Facebook posts and WhatsApp messages circulating in the last few days, stating that it is a Sinhala translation of an article written and published by the Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, Dr. Nandalal Weerasinghe.
Below are some screenshots of the Facebook posts and WhatsApp messages that are circulating.
When we inquired regarding the statement, an official of the Central Bank confirmed to us that the Central Bank Governor Dr. Nandalal Weerasinghe did not make such a statement.
Also, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka issued a statement on August 16th, emphasizing that these posts and messages aren’t true. Here. An image of the press release is given below.
The relevant announcement has also emphasized that neither Dr. Nandalal Weerasinghe nor the Central Bank of Sri Lanka bears any responsibility regarding the posts circulating on social media with the title “Inflation is not the problem but the perfect solution….this economic crisis is the best thing that has happened to us….in a historic statement by the Central Bank Governor”.
Also, with regard to the web article written and published in English stating, “inflation is not a problem, but a solution” the Central Bank press release has informed that another person has published such an article on a website and neither Dr. Nandalal Weerasinghe nor the Central Bank of Sri Lanka is responsible for the matters contained therein.
In order to confirm this further, we also examined several television programs and interviews in which the Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka participated recently and we could conclude that the Governor of the Central Bank does not state the above mentioned matter in them either.
At the beginning of this month, a misleading news was circulated on social media stating that the Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka has said that “the Government should withdraw from welfare to build the economy”.
Access the fact check here done by Hashtag Generation in relation to this.
Conclusion – We can conclude that the news circulating on social media and messaging networks claiming to be a statement made by Dr. Nandalal Weerasinghe stating “inflation is not a problem, it is the perfect solution” is false.
Click here to access previous fact checks done by Hashtag Generation.
