Sajith names ‘Malik’ as the man behind the SJB and opposition crackdown
Why did Gota appear unexpectedly at MR.’s house?
Last week, the entire country’s politics revolved around two major issues. Domestic debt restructuring was one of them. The second issue was the ‘aswasuma’ welfare system. Both of these topics had sparked a huge controversy in the country by last week, with all opposition parties and the general public outraged.
False promise by the government
When it came to domestic debt restructuring, not only the ruling party and the opposition, but the entire country, were in the dark about what would be done or what would happen. Initially, the government promised the country that the agreement with the International Monetary Fund would not result in domestic debt restructuring.
The President, the Minister of State for Finance, Mr. Shehan Semasinghe, and the Governor of the Central Bank, Mr. Nandalal Weerasinghe, have made it clear to the country on several occasions that they will not restructure the domestic debt. But the problem arose when the government began to express opinions on different occasions that a restructuring of the local debt should be carried notably during past two to three weeks’ time. Here too, some parties in the government said that according to the agreements with the International Monetary Fund, not only a restructuring of the foreign debt but also a restructuring of the domestic debt should be done.
Dr Harsha’s letter
Two weeks ago, Dr. Harsha de Silva had tabled a letter in Parliament to confirm that the government tried to wash their hands off the domestic debt restructuring by blaming the International Monetary Fund. The letter was addressed to the International Monetary Fund by none other than President Ranil Wickremesinghe as the Minister of Finance. In that letter, the President had emphasized that Sri Lanka is ready to carry out domestic debt restructuring. The story of this local debt restructuring started after that.
People kept in suspense
However, although the government has repeatedly expressed ideas about restructuring the local debt, no information has come out from the government about how it will be done, the method by which it will be done, and what will be its effect. Because of this, at the beginning of last week, everyone involved in the country’s financial sector could not imagine what was going to happen. At various times, the opposition side has criticized the banking system of the country and ETF, EPF. As it has only been stated that people’s funds can be harmed, the people were also waiting, unable to imagine what would happen.
Sudden bank holidays
The situation worsened when the government suddenly announced Friday (30) as a bank holiday. Thursday was a bank holiday because of Hajji day, Saturday and Sunday were bank holidays anyway, Monday was a poya day, and Friday was also declared a holiday, and it was a occurance to see 05 consecutive days as bank holidays. Generally, as a tradition, holidays are not given to banks for more than 03 consecutive days. That is because it is harmful to the country’s financial system. But with the announcement of 05 consecutive days as bank holidays, the suspicion that the government might take some decision in the domestic debt restructuring process affecting the banks and people’s savings in the banks started to arise. It was further aggravated when it was decided to close the Colombo stock market on Friday.
President announced in France
In this regard, last week we made a special disclosure and said that the government has planned to convene the parliament on Saturday and Sunday and present the domestic debt restructuring proposal to the parliament and pass it. The President confirmed this revelation we made last week for the first time by giving an interview to France 24 channel from France.
There, the President disclosed for the first time about the debt restructuring plan and said that out of the 41.5 billion dollars of Sri Lanka’s foreign debt, 17 billion dollars have been planned to be restructured, and it has been decided to restructure domestic debt as well. The President also disclosed that it will be submitted to the Parliamentary Finance Committee and then adopted by the Parliament. After that, the President took steps to tell the country about this while participating in an opening ceremony held in Gampaha last Tuesday.
Opposition discuss
Accordingly, at the beginning of last week, the executive committee representing the opposition parties met and held discussions in this regard. Here too, almost all the opposition representatives had pointed out that if the government tries to interfere with the banking system or people’s funds through domestic debt restructuring, strict measures should be taken against it.
SJB go into details
In addition to this, the group of members of the Samagi Jana Balawega also met on Monday under the leadership of opposition leader Mr. Sajith Premadasa to discuss the program implemented by the government regarding the restructuring of local debt and take a final decision. It was seen that Mr. Harsha de Silva also participated in this discussion which was chaired by the opposition leader Mr. Sajith Premadasa. After the discussion started there, the party’s youth members S.M. Marikkar, Hector Appuhami, Harshana Rajakaruna were seen questioning Harsha over the ongoing domestic debt restructuring.
Harsha did not know much!
What is the government trying to do by saying that it is restructuring the domestic debt? Are banks going to cut deposits? E.P.F., E.T.F. Are you going to cut money? Are you going to cut interest? The people of the country are also waiting to see what will happen without knowing anything about this. Harsha also said that he does not have much awareness in this regard.
I don’t know exactly either. According to news, that will not happen. But I can’t give a guarantee about it,’ Harsha opined in such a way that the SJB member group’s support could be taken to the government’s program. There, SJB MPs directly questioned Harsha as to who will take the responsibility if any adverse situation arises in the country by supporting this proposal of the government.
MPs clear on SJB stand
Furthermore, the MPs took steps to remind Sajith that SJB is not required to act in accordance with the President’s political decisions, and that SJB is not required to act in accordance with the President. As a result, SJB decided that after the government submitted this debt restructuring proposal to the Finance Committee, it would carefully review each section before making a final decision. It was also decided that if it harms the banking system or the funds of employees, it should be voted down.
Meanwhile, the government had taken steps to call a meeting of the party leaders in the parliament on Tuesday to discuss the parliamentary session that will be held over the weekend, but with the last minute decision to postpone it until Friday, more serious doubts about the government’s program could not be avoided.
Series of Meetings
Meanwhile, a number of rounds of special discussions were organized by the government and the opposition on Wednesday regarding the domestic debt restructuring. On the government side, a cabinet meeting was scheduled to be held at 4 pm on that day, and a special group meeting of the ruling party was also scheduled to be held at 5 pm. Apart from this, at 6 pm, a special discussion was organized by the Tamil National Alliance member Mr. Sumanthiran at the Colombo Jetwing Hotel regarding the government’s domestic debt restructuring proposals. Sumanthiran had taken steps to invite the President, the Leader of the Opposition, the Governor of the Central Bank and all the leaders of the opposition parties.
Governor at the cabinet
The Cabinet meeting was held here first. In that meeting, the President had presented the domestic debt restructuring proposal to the Cabinet, and the President had taken steps to call Central Bank Governor Dr. Nandalal Weerasinghe to inform the ministers about it. Accordingly, Nandalal gave a long explanation consisting of technical matters before the ministers. After that explanation, the ministers raised their hands without raising any objection to the local debt restructuring proposal.
Immediately after the cabinet meeting, the president attended the group meeting. Even when the President attended the meeting, it was seen how the Governor of the Central Bank, Mr. Nandalal Weerasinghe, and the Secretary of the General Treasury, Mr. Mahinda Siriwardena were also present at the meeting.
Questions from MPs
After the meeting started, Gamini Lokuge MP was the first to start the questioning. When Lokuge questioned about the potential damage to the Employees’ Provident Fund from the local debt restructuring, it was the Governor of the Central Bank who started answering. The same explanation he gave in the cabinet was seen here as well. Explaining the facts technically, the central bank governor who made some analysis on how the government is restructuring the domestic debt said that the banking system will not be interfered with and that it is planned to give an interest of 9% to the public through the provident fund. Because many technical matters were included in the Central Bank governor’s speech, the MPs in Pohottua did not have any way to ask further questions about it.
President’s explanation
In this way, after the central bank governor’s explanation, the president started the speech. The President very lightly said, ‘There is no problem now. It is said that there is a problem for the banks, E.P.F. Together ETF They said that it becomes a problem together. The Governor of the Central Bank said that there will be no problem. Therefore, this should be passed in the parliament on Saturday itself and be finished.’ A member of parliament then asked what should be done in the party leadership meeting to be held on Friday. Then the President replied to that and said to inform the party leaders of the Parliament about the things said by the Governor of the Central Bank and to discuss to end the debate on Saturday itself instead of dragging it till Sunday.
‘Aswasuma’ heats up
However, after the discussion of local debt restructuring, the MPs group meeting became heated with the most controversial issue that has led to controversy these days. It was seen that the meeting heated up as one Member of Parliament representing different provinces of Pohottuwa began to present the problems raised in their respective districts to the President due to their dissatisfaction.
Samanpriya Herath was the first to raise this issue. Samanpriya pointed out that due to this crisis, a situation has arisen where he cannot go to the village again.
Minister of State Shehan Semasinghe started to answer it. Semasinghe said that this list is not the final list, and the time has been extended by 10 days to accept people’s appeals. Semasinghe also said that the appeals can be delivered by hand, not only online.
Jagath kumara’s explained
Jagath Kumara Sumitrarachchi then spoke. Working closely with Samurdhi officials and Samurdhi recipient s, he knew the chaos very well.
‘You don’t understand this, Minister. People are roaming. Some places do not accept appeals. In some places, I just delivered their forms. These people don’t understand online, don’t even understand the app. Some cannot even write. There are also questions about the criteria how these people were choosen. If the house has a roof, if the living room is tiled, if there is a toilet, if the walls are made of bricks, if there is tap water, it is removed from Samudri.
People innocent
This is a big mistake. These people are helpless. Now people are on the streets. If this goes to the opposition, it will not be easy. Remember what happened when the former president brought organic fertilizer? It was done with good intentions but ended up being a big disaster. The government was also lost. So think about this and stop complaining…’ when Jagath Kumara said, Semasinghe took steps to answer Jagath a bit more firmly.
‘No those are lies. There is no problem as much as you say. How can you say that there are such problems without even doing a survey? When Semasinghe said that you are leading these protests, Jagath offered to answer.
Jagath vs Semasinghe
I did not go to lead the protests. I am talking with the information from the regional secretaries. You are also not doing this after a survey…’ when Jagath pointed out the problem, the President intervened and took steps to end the argument by informing that the ‘aswasuma’ will not stop at all. Also, to end the meeting, the president wished a member of parliament from Pohottuwa and brought a birthday cake to the group of members.
Sashindra’s birth day
‘No , we will not stop ‘aswasuma’ It will continue. That’s no problem. Where is this MP Shashindra? Today is his birthday. Where do you bring that cake? Let’s congratulate the wrap and cut the cake. Where is Minister Diana? Wish Shashindra a happy birthday….” The President congratulated Shashindra and invited Shashindra to cut the cake.
However, it was witnessed that during the cutting of the cake took place, Shehan Semasinghe and MP Jagath Kumara engaged in a heated exchange of words. when Shehan and Jagat were accusing each other Prasanna Ranatunga came there and scolded Jagath using harsh language. Prasanna said that Samurdhi officials are being provoked by Jagath.
Jagath cornered
‘You are the ones who sit behind these things and instigate this. Don’t continue like this. Don’t get ready to play the old games now. We’ll take care…’ Prasanna was seen pointing the finger at Jagath in a threatening manner. At this time, a significant group of MPs were watching this incident, but it was a specially noted that none of them came to Jagath’s support.
Sumanthiran’s meeting at Jet wing
After the parliamentary group meeting that ended in this way, the President went straight to the Colombo Jetwing Hotel. That was to participate in the discussion organized by Sumanthiran to inform the party leaders in the Parliament regarding debt restructuring. Even then, the Governor of the Central Bank had come to the discussion and made the presentation before the Cabinet to the party leaders. There too, the Governor of the Central Bank said that the banking sector will not be affected by this, and only the Employees’ Provident Fund will be restructured under this.
Many queries from opposition MPs
But here the party leaders did not get to see how they agreed to it. In particular, not only Sumanthiran, Rauf Hakeem, Dr. Nishan de Mel, the head of the Verity Research Institute who participated in the discussion as an economic expert, could be seen severely questioning the Governor of the Central Bank on this matter. Their argument was that after the country was declared bankrupt, without restructuring the interest given to the affluent who invested money in bonds at very high interest rates, on what basis would they touch the employees’ provident fund which belonging to lakhs of common people.
Harsha backs the governor
Very significantly it was observed that Mr. Harsha De Silva, who is a SJB economic expert and also the Chairman of the Parliamentary Finance Committee, surprising everyone and telling the party leaders the same contents as the Governor of the Central Bank. Harsha said that there was no alternative for this and this had to be done. It was not only Sumanthiran, Rauf Hakeem but also Dr. Nishan de Mel, who were very angry with Harsha’s speech, commented against Harsha. Notably there were none to defend Harsha in this instant.
Series of complaints against Harsha
After this incident, many people in SJB had a lot of doubts about Harsha and a large number of people who spoke to Sajith said that a scheme is being launched behind the scenes to destroy SJB centered around Harsha. These MPs informed Sajith that they are launching a plan to get involve the SJB MPs and that there will be a situation where they will not be able to raise their hand to restructure the local debt and go to the village. Also, on Thursday morning, Sajith discussed the domestic debt restructuring with various groups, where many people were seen speaking against Harsha.
Harsha’s wrong statement
In the meantime, due to a statement that Harsha had given to a well-known English website, added oil to fire and it ignited by Thursday morning. There, Harsha had told the relevant website over the phone that he had discussed with Sajith and SJB and now party position is in favor of the government’s local debt restructuring program. When this news was reported, Sajith became very angry and asked how Harsha could have given such a statement to a website when the party had not yet taken such a decision. Accordingly, Sajith informed the Party General Secretary Ranjith Maddumabandara to correct it immediately, and Ranjith Maddumabandara informed the media that the party has not yet taken a final decision regarding the restructuring of the domestic debt.
Sajith’s decision to attend Finance committee
It was midst of this background that the domestic debt restructuring proposal was to be presented to the Parliamentary Finance Committee with Harsha’s participation on Thursday afternoon. Sajith had decided in advance to attend the finance committee meeting on both Thursday and Friday due to the damage to the people’s employees’ provident fund through local debt restructuring and Harsha’s action against the party’s opinion in this occasion. With the disclosure of this through our website, the government also made their plans through Harsha to shut Sajith’s mouth in the finance committee.
Oppose Sajith’s arrival
Accordingly, with the commencement of the finance committee meeting on Thursday evening, Sajith also participated in it as the leader of the opposition. Mahindananda Aluthgamage, Nimal Lanza, Suren Raghavan, who started speaking on behalf of the government as planned, pointed out that since the opposition leader is not a member of the finance committee, he cannot sit in this meeting.
Sajith as an observer
But the MPs representing the opposition protested and said that the leader of the opposition has the right to participate in any committee of the parliament and express his opinion. Then Mahindanand and Lansa said that then the opposition leader cannot be given the opportunity to ask the questions in the finance committee. When the opposition MPs objected to that, the government MPs pointed out that as the chairman, Harsha should take the final decision on this matter. Accordingly, Harsha said that since two opinions have been presented, we will take a final decision on this through a poll. Accordingly, in the voting held, it was seen that the ruling party got 10 votes and the opposition got 6 votes.
Proposal not given
According to that decision, the opposition leader was given the opportunity to participate in the finance committee meeting only as an observer and to raise any questions through a committee representative. According to that decision, Sajith as an observer could be seen carefully watching the behavior and comments of the representatives of the government including Harsha until the end of the finance committee meeting. However, the most special incident that came to be seen here was that the government had informed that it would be submitted to the finance committee before submitting the domestic debt restructuring proposal to the parliament, but it was not submitted to the committee that day either.
SJB meet on Thursday night
Accordingly, by Thursday evening, the leaders of Samagi Jana Balavega led by Sajith had realized that the government was trying to hide a serious matter from the country. Accordingly, Sajith took steps to convene a special group meeting on Thursday night to discuss the decision to be taken by the party regarding debt restructuring. Also, measures were taken to invite Mujiber Rahman, Sujeeva Senasinghe, Hirunika Premachandra, who are not members of parliament, and Mr. Nishan de Mel, who was an economic expert.
Sajith explains
Sajith started the speech and took steps to explain his position on domestic debt restructuring to the group of MPs. Apart from this, Sajith also made a long explanation about the emerging political situation.
The government initially made a statement that it would not touch the banking system or the employees’ provident fund while restructuring the domestic debt. But now it is very clear that this will cause great damage to the Employees’ Provident Fund. Therefore, my personal opinion is that the government’s proposal should be opposed in the parliament.
Malik’s story
Not only that, now these people are sending a new story that Ranil is the President and Sajith is the Prime Minister. The person behind this story is none other than Malik Samarawickrama. Ranil – I have no desire to strengthen the Rajapaksa government. That’s why I say, if anyone is thinking to take me and the party and stand with Ranil, it’s just a daydream. They are daydreams of Malik. In my life, I am not ready to go to Ranil and take positions. Saying, ‘I will not get caught in the games played by the Maliks to strengthen the hands of Ranil and Mahinda.’ After Sajith, Sujeeva Senasinghe started commenting. Here, Sujeewa proceeded to criticize Ranil severely by describing Ranil’s history.
Sujeewa on DDR !
‘No one has yet seen that the government has brought this local debt restructuring. I don’t even know what’s going on. The MPs do not even understand what they are saying. Ranil was never a politician who thought about the common people. He always thought about the people of Colombo seven and did politics. We also did politics with him for a while. He doesn’t care about little people. Therefore, we should do politics; we should take decisions thinking about the little people of this country. Sujeewa explained that if the decisions taken by the government harm the small people, we should oppose it.
Marikkar explained
After that Marikkarya started commenting.
Here we have to take a decision as a party, not our personal opinion. In the group meeting held last Monday, we decided to oppose the restructuring of local debt on three points. One decision there was that we are against if the employees’ provident fund is touched. Now it is clear that the government has a hand in the Employees’ Provident Fund. On the other hand, here the government has treated millionaires in one way and common man in another way. The government has not touched the money of the millionaires who invested in bonds at high interest in the past. Common people’s money has been touched. That’s why we should vote against this’ was what Marikkar said.
After Marikkar, many MPs like Ashok Abeysinghe, Nalin Bandara, Mujibur Rahman, King’s Nelson, Hirunika Premachandra, Harshana Rajakaruna etc. spoke against the restructuring of domestic debt. Party General Secretary Ranjith Maddumabandara also took a firm stance. Accordingly, in the end, the group of SJB MPs decided to vote against the government’s domestic debt restructuring proposal to be submitted to Parliament.
JVP is silent
However, after this meeting, several MPs came and engaged in some conversation with Sajith about the current political situation. Many people talked about JVP’s behavior. Even though many serious issues have been raised in the country, the fact that they did not speak a word against the JVP government had caused the surprise of the Sahab MPs.
Deal with the government
It looks like JVP is in a big deal with the government. Although the government’s domestic debt restructuring work has created a serious problem for the people’s provident fund, J.V.P. One does not speak a word about it. Anura is now in Melbourne, Australia. Vijitha Herat is not even found. Even Harini Amarasuriya doesn’t say a word about these things. She had talked about education reforms the other day. The whole party is silent. Wasantha Samarasinghe, who is in charge of the trade union, is reading something to barely escape the pressure. We have to inform people about the double standard of the J.V.P. and their deal with the government…’ when the MPs pointed out to Sajith, it was seen that Sajith nodding in approval.
Mahinda’s wedding anniversary
After some time in the midst of all these political upheavals, a ceremony was organized at the official residence of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa in Wijerama Mawatha. It was taken on the occasion of Mahinda and Shiranti’s wedding anniversary. Because of that, after some time, Mahinda had arranged to invite all the Rajapaksa family members.
However, we have pointed out on many occasions in this column that some divisions and ill will had arisen within the Rajapaksa family based on certain events that happened after the former President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa became the President.
This situation was aggravated especially by the events that occurred after Gota left the presidency and ran away. The crisis had become so severe that there was no record of all the Rajapaksa family coming together.
Misunderstanding among Rajapakse’s
It was also reported that Gota was not invited to some events. Recently, a party was organized after the arrival of a sister of the Rajapakse family who is abroad, but other than Mahinda all the others was present at that event. Apart from that, When Indian Foreign Minister S. Jayashankar came to Sri Lanka, a meeting was organized with Mahinda and only Gota was present.
However, although everyone was invited to the Mahinda-Shiranti wedding anniversary, Basil was not seen on that day. Gotada was present alone without Anoma. Gota came to Mahinda’s house after a long time. Even when Gota came, no one highly regarded him as usual. It was also seen how many people avoided Gota without facing him. Having realized this, Gota had taken steps to leave Wijerama after having dinner soon
Meanwhile, last week new news about Gota was reported in the ‘ Inside Politics ‘ column. That is Gota is planning to visit Thailand and Laos. It is not known whether it is a picnic or a pilgrimage.