A new State-backed housing loan scheme for Sri Lankans working overseas offers up to Rs.10 million, with part of the interest subsidised by the Foreign Employment Bureau. It could be one of the more useful migrant-worker initiatives in years – provided access is simple, transparent and not swallowed by bureaucracy.
Sri Lankan migrant workers are to be offered housing loans of between Rs.500,000 and Rs.10 million under a new programme titled “Ethera Diriya”, scheduled for formal launch on September 10.
The scheme will be implemented through the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment, with loans available through both State and private-sector banks. A portion of the interest cost will be reimbursed by the Bureau, reducing the burden on workers borrowing to build or purchase homes.
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The broader lending initiative is aimed at Sri Lankans working overseas who can demonstrate formal employment and remittances through recognised banking channels. Housing is only part of it: financing may also be available for business development, vehicles and children’s education.
It is difficult to quarrel with the principle.
Migrant workers have been treated for decades as a source of foreign exchange while the social and financial cost of migration has often been borne almost entirely by their families. If a worker spends years abroad earning the dollars Sri Lanka desperately needs, helping that worker convert those earnings into a permanent home is sound economic policy.
The test, however, will be in the fine print.
NewsLine would like to see clarity on the effective interest rate after the subsidy, eligibility requirements, collateral demanded by participating banks, how long the subsidy continues, and whether a worker returning permanently to Sri Lanka remains entitled to the concession.
There is also the perennial danger that an attractive Government announcement becomes far less attractive by the time it reaches a bank counter.
The people this programme is intended to assist are not merely foreign-exchange statistics. They are Sri Lankans who frequently leave spouses, parents and children behind for years at a time in order to earn what they cannot earn at home.
If Ethera Diriya genuinely helps them return to a house of their own, it deserves support.
But the measure of success will not be the number of press releases issued tomorrow.
It will be the number of migrant-worker families who actually receive the keys.
