News
President to take tough political measures
President Maithripala Sirisena, due to return at dawn today after his UN visit, is set to take some tough political measures in the coming weeks, including a possible cabinet re-shuffle, sources close to him said yesterday.
Adding greater significance to the move is last week’s decision by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) Central Committee to review the party’s three-and-half-year-old coalition with the United National Party (UNP). The decision, reported in the Sunday Times (Political Commentary) last week, is to determine how much of the SLFP policies have been implemented by the UNP-dominated government and assess their future relationship.
This is amidst heightening tensions between President Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe over a variety of issues. As reported last week, the latest issue centres on accusations that the Attorney General’s Department was behind moves to implicate the Prime Minister in accepting kick-backs from a company connected to the Central Bank bond scam (see story on this page).
A businessman now in remand prison is reported to have claimed that a state legal officer allegedly approached him with an offer to mitigate the issues he faced if he gave an affidavit to say three VVIPs had been paid out massive sums of money from his companies.
The businessman in question told a visitor who saw him at the remand prison, “why should I betray anyone. My investments are bringing me more than five million rupees every month.” A matter which has caused serious concern for President Sirisena is his perception that the economy is on a downward trend and nearing a crisis point due to ban management. He feels it has been aggravated by the depreciation of the Sri Lankan rupee vis-a-vis the US dollar. The move has forced living costs to soar. Exacerbating it is the Government’s Fuel Pricing Formula seeing fuel prices rise every month. Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera has reiterated that the dollar may strengthen further.
Sources close to President Sirisena say he may nominate one of his choices to be the new Secretary to the Ministry of Finance to replace Dr. R.H.S. Samaratunga, who is going on retirement. He has also in store other measures to ensure that an “economy allowed to freewheel” without any direction is immediately corrected, the sources said.
A possible cabinet reshuffle, the same sources said, could see the entry of at least two new faces. One name that is mentioned is Dayasiri Jayasekera whilst another is UNP high ranker and former Foreign Minister Ravi Karunanayake.
If former Sports Minister Jayasekera is willing to join the SLFP ranks, walking back from sitting in the Opposition. In other words a political about turn with a return to the SLFP top ranks. Mr. Karunanayake, these sources said, was hugely disappointed with the UNP leadership over how he had been treated though he was a senior member. There was, however, no official confirmation over these two new appointments.
The conduct of two senior UNP ministers in the recent past has also been cause for serious concern by President Sirisena. One of them is under close scrutiny over some of his official transactions.
There is more on President Sirisena’s agenda, the sources said.