A great obstruction has been caused to the country’s economy and community life due to the sudden abolition of powers of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet of Ministers, former Minister Bandula Gunawardena said.
He said Mahinda Rajapaksa in his capacity as former Finance Minister announced a great amount of relief measures for the benefit of farmers, agriculture, small and medium scale industries and several other sectors, but these relief measures had been denied to them due to the prohibition of the Cabinet by court in response to a Writ of Quo Warranto sought by the UNP.
Addressing a press conference at the Vajirasharamaya, Borella on December 9, Guanwardena said their party boycotted parliament because they opposed the so-called No Confidence Motion tabled in Parliament recently. They would not boycott Parliament if a proper No-Confidence Motion was presented in Parliament in keeping with Standing Orders and provisions of the Construction.
Gunawardena said according to the Constitution, the President had the sole right to appoint a Prime Minister and a Cabinet of Ministers. Accordingly, the President appointed Mahinda Rajapaksa as Prime Minister and others as members of the Cabinet. Even the UNP did not the Prime Minister and the Cabinet then and it did not go before the court against it. Suddenly, the UNP had made an appeal to the Court Appeal against the dissolution of Parliament. The court after considering had temporarily suspended the Prime Minister and the Cabinet of Ministers. This had caused immense economic social political problems and adversely affected community life.
Gunawardana said after being appointed as Investment Promotion and International Trade Minister he obtained Cabinet approval to appoint a Committee to draw up a National Trade Policy.
He also obtained Cabinet approval to appoint a committee formulate an Investment Promotion Tax Free Package. He also appointed a Committee to set up 5,000 export processing villages in the country within one month. He hoped to strengthen the rupee by implementing these programmes. Although he had no powers to abrogate the Singapore Free Trade Agreement which was an agreement between two countries, he held discussions with unions which supposed this agreement. In keeping with the requests made by these unions, they had begin printing the agreement in all three languages.
The proposal made to the Cabinet to temporarily halt the implementation of the agreement is awaiting the Supreme Court order on it and the report of the Prof. W.D.Lakshman Committee. But, all these had been stalled due to the temporary abolition of the Cabinet of Ministers.
Parliamentarian Sisira Jayakody said during the 30-year-war, the LTTE bombed the Central Bank and the Bandaranaile International Airport, Katunayake aimed at destroying the country’s economy.
“Certain LTTE political representatives in the TNA were also implementing a programme to destroy the country’s economy by covert means through the UNP,” he alleged.
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