Presidential Candidate of the Samagi Jana Sandhanaya (SJS), Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa pledged to negotiate a new agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), asserting that a government led by the SJS would secure a more humanitarian-focused deal.
“They claim that a new government cannot amend the current IMF agreement. While we must continue working with the IMF, we will seek a new agreement based on humanitarian principles,” Premadasa said.
Addressing a public rally in Mawanella yesterday (19), Premadasa said if sacrifices are to be made, everyone should be prepared to make sacrifices, and the rulers should make sacrifices first without imposing more and more taxes on the public under the pretext of IMF’s terms and conditions, the Leader of the Opposition Sajith Premadasa said.
He claimed that the existing economic system in the country has been implemented for the benefit of a certain set of rich individuals and that the government has used the IMF to steal the EPF and ETF of the working class citizen to ensure the safety of these rich individuals. He also said that the government has hoodwinked people by claiming that the need to increase the taxes currently being imposed as a requirement by the IMF, even though the IMF had not made such a requirement.
“President Ranil Wickremesinghe say that the government is piling one tax after the other, upon the shoulders of the people because the IMF has asked the government to do so. This is deceiving as there is no such thing mentioned on the IMF agreement. The IMF has given targets, but the government makes the road plan to achieve those targets”, said the Leader of the Opposition.
He further claimed that due to such economic policies, more than half of the country’s population has become poor and that he will prepare a more powerful program to eliminate poverty in Sri Lanka under an SJS government.
