Category: Featured Headlines

President Ranil Wickremesinghe has instructed relevant officials to implement the Singapore-Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement (FTA) immediately.

The Head of State gave these directives during the discussion held at the Presidential Secretariat this morning (Nov 16) on the implementation of the Singapore-Sri Lanka FTA.

The existing problems in this regard were discussed at length and the President highlighted the need to provide quick solutions to all the existing problems.

President’s Secretary Saman Ekanayake, Senior Economic Advisor to the President Dr. R.H.S. Samaratunga, Attorney General Sanjaya Rajaratnam, Secretary to the Ministry of Trade, Commerce and Food Security S.T. Kodikara, and Heads of Line institutions were present at this discussion.

Thamil Makkal Thesiya Kuttani (TMTK) Leader MP C.V. Wigneswaran yesterday (15) claimed that President Ranil Wickremesinghe had ignored the North and the East in Budget 2023, adding that proposing an economic zone in the North and asking the diaspora to invest would have been one of the easiest ways by which he could have brought about reconciliation.

Speaking to The Morning, Wigneswaran noted that from the point of view of the Tamil people, there is nothing worthwhile to talk about in the Budget.

“There are ways by which the Government does not allow the Tamil people to prosper. I don’t see the benefits in this Budget. In fact, they are very much against our interests, especially due to not proposing an economic zone for the Northern Province. As an MP for the Jaffna District, it is from the point of view of the Tamil people that I would be looking at the Budget. I must say that I am frankly disappointed, because there is increased revenue, but how is it going to be spent?”

He also noted that the most glaring error in the Government’s thinking has been the defence as well as the public security expenditure, which had risen from Rs. 427 billion to Rs. 539 billion even after 14 years since the end of the war.

“I just can’t understand why, 14 years after the end of the war, we go on building up our expenditure on defence. Is that what the people want? The people certainly will not be wanting such things; they want benefits for their day-to-day lives. There is so much taxation. They would like these taxes to be decreased, and one of the ways in which taxes could be decreased is by bringing down defence expenditure. The defence expenditure had even gone beyond what was spent during the era of the war. The currency had come down in value and therefore the amount had gone up. But then, that is not the point. Why should it be so much more? What are we trying to do?”

He also said that from the point of view of the Tamil people, the North has not been identified as an economic zone, whereas Trincomalee, Hambantota, Kurunegala, and the Western Province have been identified as such.

“Trincomalee has been identified because they are going to give jobs to the Sinhalese to drive away the Tamils. Making Trincomalee an economic zone together with Hambantota and other places, and forgetting the Northern Province is irking me, because the Northern Province could have been identified as an economic zone. We could have brought the diaspora to help us. They would have most gladly come and invested,” he added.

He charged that President Wickremesinghe continues to maintain an ethno-centric philosophy, because he is not being very fair to the Tamil people.

“He is not interested. He is ignoring the North and the East. This casts him in poor light. At the moment, that is one of the easiest things that he could have done, where even more economic activities could have been initiated in the Northern and Eastern Provinces, and he could therefore have made the people of these areas feel at home with the Government. When you go to Colombo and other areas, you see a lot of modernisation taking place but when you come up to Vavuniya and then go up to Jaffna, there is no modernisation.

“An absolutely primitive type of environment is what we are experiencing. The youth want more job opportunities, but there are no new industries and enterprises brought into the North. When I started an enterprise in the Northern Province when I was the Chief Minister, the Government sabotaged it,” he added.

However, he welcomed the retirement prospects with regard to the Army that have been mentioned in the Budget.

“I do welcome the retirement prospects with regard to the Army that have been mentioned in the Budget, where, instead of the earlier 22 years of service, if they engage in 18 years of service, they are entitled to retire. We have 331,000 soldiers in our military, and that is about the 14th largest in the whole world. It is the 14th biggest Army. Great Britain comes after that, because they have only 90,000 soldiers.

“Giving retirement prospects for these people to bring the number of soldiers down is to be welcomed. But they have made it optional. Now, with no jobs available, people will not like to leave the Army, because at least the amount they get there will be worthwhile. They could have made this compulsory, and that is one way by which they could have brought the expenditure of the Army down,” he added.

President Wickremesinghe in his capacity as the Minister of Finance presented Budget 2023 to Parliament on Monday (14), aimed at creating long-term, stable economic growth.

After the 21st Amendment to the Constitution was passed by Parliament last month and the Speaker signed and put it into force, no one with dual citizenship can be a member of Parliament. It has also become impossible for them to contest any election and come to positions elected by the people. It is in keeping with the dignity of their posts that the people’s representatives who are now in Parliament admit to holding dual citizenship and resign their posts.

But three weeks later, none of our dual citizen MPs have done so.

Ten MPs are said to have dual citizenship. The Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) leader Champika Ranawaka has stated this openly. If there are indeed ten such people, they are illegally sitting in Parliament. Look at how Sri Lankan democracy is being ridiculed!

All members of the current Parliament were elected at the August 2020 general election. At that time, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which had a provision prohibiting dual citizens from contesting elections was in force. It is obvious that the MPs, who are said to hold dual citizenship, had concealed the truth when they filed nomination papers to contest that election. They had hidden the truth not only from the Election Commission but also from the leaders of their parties. Or it must be said that the leaders nominated them as candidates despite knowing the truth.

The major issue in the matter is the problem facing the state institutions involved, including parliament, in identifying dual-citizenship MPs.

When speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena was questioned by the media about the possibility that dual citizens had been elected or appointed to parliament he said it was not parliament’s responsibility to find it out, but that of the Election Commission. But when a person files nomination papers to contest elections, it is not the responsibility of the Elections Commission to investigate his/her citizenship, says its Chairman Nimal Punchihewa.

His stand is that anyone can approach the court in the matter if there is enough evidence. It is to be noted that former Election Commission Chairman Mahinda Deshapriya also took the same stance when complaints were made that Gotabaya Rajapaksa filed his nomination for the 2019 Presidential election without giving up his US citizenship.

It has been announced that the Department of Immigration and Emigration will submit a report about the controversy that has arisen over some MPs keeping their dual citizenship secret. If such a report is submitted, those who are identified as members of Parliament but ate dual citizens must quit their posts. It is not known whether they will insist that their status be decided by the court even after they have been identified.

Those who contested the last general election concealing their dual citizenship and were elected to parliament have been members of the House for more than two years. It is not known whether the salaries, special allowances and benefits they have received so far will be recovered from them in the event that they are exposed and forced to leave parliament. This has to be decided by Parliament.

But the concerned MPs may also argue that they have not done anything illegal or improper as the 20th Amendment, which was later passed in October 2020, allowed people with dual citizenships to come to Parliament even though the 19th Amendment was in force when they contested the elections. But there is no question that when the nomination papers were filed, they concealed the fact of dual citizenship and were bypassing the law.

The leaders of the political parties that are part of parliament have an important responsibility in the matter. But none of them seems to have yet realized that they have a moral obligation to fulfill that responsibility. Leaders should find out if any of their party’s MPs have dual citizenship and ask them to resign. Will they do so?

Since the passage of the 21 st.,amendment, no MP has voluntarily declared that he has dual citizenship and come forward to resign. ‘Find out if you can’ seems to be their approach to this issue. Perhaps they do not even care about the humiliation that might befall them when the truth is discovered and they are forced to resign. Such is the quality of our present-day politicians.

Sri Lankan activists handed over letters to Foreign Missions based in Colombo seeking their intervention to abolish the controversial Prevention of Terrorism Act and for the release of IUSF Convener Wasantha Mudalige, and Venerable Galwewa Siridhamma Thero, who are detained under the PTA.

The group engaged in a silent protest opposite the UN compound in Colombo, and later handed over a letter to a UN representative.

Thereafter the group proceeded to the Norwegian Embassy in Colombo, the EU office in Colombo, the British High Commission in Colombo, the US Embassy in Colombo, and the Canadian High Commission.

The group thereafter attempted to hand-over a letter to the Indian High Commission in Colombo, however, it was not accepted.

Loans given by the Exim Bank of China to several state enterprises and government guaranteed loans taken by Ceylon Petroleum Corporation will be taken by the central government, President Ranil Wickremesinghe said.

Exim Bank of China funded a coal plant for state-run Ceylon Petroleum Corporation which was determined by the Auditor General as perhaps the best investment made by Sri Lanka since hydro plants in the Mahaweli multi-purpose scheme.

Sri Lanka Airport also had a loan to develop Mattala Airport, considered a ‘white elephant’.

Sri Lanka Ports Authority was given a loan by Exim Bank of China for the Hambantota Port.

China paid 1.1 billion US dollars in cash for a stake in the port.

However Sri Lanka did not use to settle Chinese debt. Instead ‘more expensive’ loans from other parties were settled.

The Ceylon Petroleum Corporation has around 2.0 billion US dollars loans taken from state banks after the central bank printed money to suppress rates and target an output gap, triggering forex shortages.

Analysts in Sri Lanka have labelled them Nick Leeson loans.

Singapore’s Prime Lee Kuan Yew called such debt taken by soft-pegged countries, ‘cover-up loans’ a day before the setting up of a currency board was announced on August 26, 1966 in parliament by then Finance Minister Lim Kim San.

“Now, we are going to run a Currency system which means that the moment we earn less, we spend less,” Prime Minister Lee told a trade union on August 25 night. “And I say we do it or we die because this is a society with an open market, exposed.

“If you start fiddling around with currency and you start printing notes and then you have no money really to spend and you start borrowing to cover up, you will end up in penury and bitterness.

After engaging in stimulus (output gap targeting), policymakers are then forced to put the breaks as the inevitable consequences follow.

The IMF taught Sri Lanka’s central bank to calculate and output gap. Sri Lanka is now in ““Right, stop; break; pull the money back,” mode, which the same ‘lost generation’ economists call ‘stabilization’.

Sri Lanka defaulted after borrowing billions of dollars from both China and sovereign bond holders as cover up loans under flexible inflation targeting/output gap targeting triggered forex shortages.

Under an IMF program, a new monetary law allowing flexible inflation targeting or discretionary policy to ‘fiddle around with the currency’ as happened in the past 7 years triggering three currency crises in rapid succession is to be legalized.