SJB accuses PM of not doing anything other than safeguarding Rajapaksas

By Akitha Perera

By accepting the post of Prime Minister, UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe had prevented the Rajapaksa clan from being banished from politics, SJB MP Mujibur Rahman, said.The MP said that Wickremesinghe continued to protect the Rajapaksa family at the expense of the country..

Addressing the media in Colombo, Rahman said that Wickremesinghe had not offered any solutions to the problems faced by Sri Lanka.

“Prices of all essential items have gone through the roof. People can’t even buy fuel or gas even if they have money. People are becoming dependent on the black market. It has been two months since Wickremesinghe came to power. A few days ago, he made a second statement on the state of the economy. He says that we need to continue our discussions with the IMF; that we need to restructure our debt and that we need to convene a conference seeking further loans,” Rahman said.

The SJB MP said that those proposals had already been made by a number of politicians and individuals since 2020. He added that when SJB leader, Sajith Premadasa made those proposals in early 2021, the government ignored them.

“They said they have enough reserves to pay loans and that there was no need to panic. If the government had listened to experts, we wouldn’t have been in this mess. Now, Wickremesinghe is repeating what the Opposition law makers have been saying for years,” he said.

Rahman said Sri Lanka should have a fallback position in case talks with the IMF failing to yield expected results.The Prime Minister was trying to ensure that Gotabaya Rajapaksa kept enjoying the powers of the executive and strip the next president of powers, Rahman added.