Gota must go home, there’s no other way

By resigning at a time when people are suffering from immense economic calamities, the ministers have accepted that they are unable to govern the country, TNA MP, M.A. Sumanthiran said in Parliament on Thursday.

“What’s the situation in the country? The situation in the country is that the people can’t live – they have no food to eat, people don’t have fuel, children can’t go to school, they have come on to the streets; that’s the situation in the country.

“And then in order to handle that situation what has the government done? The government has resigned, all members of the Cabinet have tendered their resignations. Now what does that mean? That means, that they accept, they are unable to govern the country,” he said.

“However, some members of the government say that they still have the mandate to govern. If that is the case, why did the cabinet resign then”, he asked.

“Now having conceded that you have failed, you are now standing up here talking big. The country is in a very serious crisis – you must go! And when I say you must go – the leader must go.  I mean, if after all of these days you have not understood what the people are saying, if you think that by removing the Minister of Finance or a state minister tendering his resignation with effect from May 1, or some other measure, that’s not sufficient,” he said.

Sumantiran said that there are serious issues with regard to the finances of the country. For a long time the government insisted that they will not go to the International Monetary Fund.

“However, you have eventually caved in and you have gone. And yesterday the IMF issued a statement, I am going to read it from the Reuters news report. It says “IMF staff is looking forward to programme discussions with the authorities including during the visit of the newly appointed Finance Minister to Washington later this month”.

Now where is the newly appointed Finance Minister? I mean the one most important post there must be in the government today, if you are to deal with the situation out there, if you are to deal with the dollar crisis, if you are to deal with the escalating prices, if you are to deal with the shortage of food, the shortage of Medicines – it is the Minister of Finance. And you don’t have a Minister of Finance. You have decided to go to the IMF but who is to go? You have brought this country to bankruptcy,” he said.

He added: “You have brought this country to bankruptcy. I am reminded of something that I learned as to the word “bankruptcy”. When in ancient Greece, when there were lenders in the market place, they sat on benches – “Banku” in Sinhala, that’s how the word came “Bankuwala wadiwela hitiya” they lent more than they could actually afford, at the end of the day when they did not have money to give back, people came, took that bench and broke it into two. “Bankus ruptus” that’s bankruptcy.

“So people have now come to take your chair, your throne – what you thought was the Rajapaksa throne – and they are breaking it into two. They are chasing you away from the government so the trader – the banker – the “Bankus ruptus” and he was chased away that’s what they are doing. Because you have made the country bankrupt.

“How did that happen? “Yes it happened over a long period of time; you borrowed.  But the last trigger, the trigger that sent you down the slippery slope, from which you are unable to climb back up, happened in December 2019. When President Gotabaya Rajapaksa became the President and wanted to hold the parliamentary elections very soon, he thought ‘okay with this wind we will capture power, coming to parliament as well’ and announced a series of tax cuts. Lowered the rates of VAT, increased the threshold for income tax, corporate tax, etc.

“Now, the analysis shows that by one act alone 25% of the revenue to the country was lost. What is worse? 33% of the taxpayers got out of that tax net. And that is how everybody reckoned that you will not be able to meet the balance of payments; your ratings dropped, and today at the public finance committee it was confirmed that in April 2020 we were shut out of the financial markets – we were blacklisted.

“Two years ago, we were blacklisted, but you did not tell the people that. Your mismanagement, your eagerness to win the elections by giving freebees, sweeteners to the people, that caused it. Once you were shut out of the international financial markets, it was the slope from which you could never climb back.

“That’s why the country is in this situation. At least now the people have woken up. That’s why they are saying ‘Go Gota, go home’ that’s why they are calling on the President to go. Because it was the act of the President that triggered this collapse. He must go, if this is a democratic country, if you have ears to hear, then listen; anyone in the government ranks, if you actually have ears, tell your President to go. The Constitution has made provisions when the president resigns how the country will be governed. All that will happen. But until he goes people will not relent, I can tell you that.”

“This is not something that any political party has organized, and I must tell the Chief Government Whip not to try what President JR Jayewardene tried in 1983. Putting the blame on the left forces of the country, driving them back underground.

“That’s what happened to the JVP who had joined the mainstream by then, President Jayewardene said Naxalite forces, Vasudeva Nanayakara went underground, Vijaya Kumaratunga was arrested, JVP went underground.

“This morning, the Chief government Whip tried that with JVP, please don’t do that. No political party has done this. This is the People’s Movement; this is something unprecedented; this country has never seen this before. That is why you are in shock. This is happening organically and people will not relent until Gota goes home.