Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) MP Eran Wickramaratne said politicians, who did not have any experience in statecraft, destabilised the country.Addressing a press conference yesterday, he said Sri Lanka has sent a message to the world by agreeing to an IMF programme.
“It indicates that we are running the country with some financial discipline. Then we will be able to access funding from other countries, and financial organisations. However, we want the government to present the IMF agreement to the people. There must be some transparency. It was this lack of transparency that brought Sri Lanka to this mess,” he said.
MP Wickramaratne said when signing an agreement with the IMF, the government has to increase taxes to boost state revenue.
“We are not opposed to this in principal. When we took over in 2015, state revenue was 10 percent of the GDP. By 2019, it was 13 percent. However, the government must tell why it is doing what it is doing. The biggest reason we see a lot of opposition to the taxes is because of the opaqueness,” he said.
The MP said that while the tax threshold is not that different from 2019, the situation in the country has totally changed.
“The food inflation is 100 percent. Inflation is over 50 percent. A person can only get half the things they could have got in 2019 with their money. Given the drop in purchasing power, 100,000 rupees a month isn’t great,” he said.The SJB MP said 100,000 rupees is not enough to sustain a family now.
Source:: The Island
