Colombo, May 5 (Representative) An online petition by the ‘Save Sri Lanka’ group is seeking to bring in global pressure to force President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa to quit, arguing that the country will never recover from its worst economic crisis as long as they hold power. The Island daily on Thursday quoted the petition — to be sent to the UN, International Monetary Fund and the World Bank — as attributing Sri Lanka’s present plight to bad economic decision making, poor fiscal planning and management as well as rampant corruption by politicians and government officials. Colombo is currently negotiating to restructure existing foreign loans and seek additional IMF loans to address the country’s deficit in foreign reserves. Sri Lanka is asking its expatriates and the rest of the world to help it weather this storm.
But ‘Save Sri Lanka’ argues that if entrenched patterns of financial mismanagement and corruption continue as usual, this latest injection of foreign investment will not contribute to sustained economic growth. It will also not improve the living conditions of the most vulnerable sections of the population. “In a corrupt and mismanaged economy, investors cannot expect adequate returns or security for their investments. Tourists will not feel safe to visit a country where there are doubts about the rule of law and protection of human rights,” it said. “In recognition of these structural problems, a loud cry for political and economic reforms has emerged from across the country,” it added.
The petition underlined that island-wide protests were going on for weeks demanding the resignation of the President and the Prime Minister who the group insists were largely responsible for the current crisis which has caused unprecedented shortages of essential commodities. It said that the President and the Prime Minister must resign immediately and allow an interim administration to take over governance of the country. It wants Parliament to pass new laws requiring politicians to declare assets prior to running for election and to be subjected to an audit of their asset and liability declaration at the end of their term in Parliament. It says that politicians and officials must declare conflict of interests relating to any posts they hold. “Restructure current taxation laws to minimise indirect tax that burden the low-income groups more and enforce income-based tax policies.