President Sirisena was tricked by Unity Government: JO

President Maithripala Sirisena had been tricked by the Prime Minister to form the Unity Government, the Joint Opposition (JO) said yesterday.

Addressing a press briefing organised by the JO, MP Bandula Gunawardena said President Sirisena had realised that he had lost control of the Cabinet, which led him to order produce any decision taken by the Committee for Economic Development to the Cabinet without noticing him within two weeks.

He said the President was deceived by the picture of so-called development strategies showed by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

“The Government told us that the Volkswagen factory would be their biggest development project, which would create about 300,000 jobs in the Kuliyapitiya region” .

“It was something like creating an industrial revolution, which former President Mahinda Rajapaksa failed to do,” the MP said.

He further said the country’s resources are being sold for a song to foreign countries by the government.

“The principal development agencies including the Central Bank have approved the decision to sell the country’s resources. As a measure to the economic crisis they mentioned that it was essential to barter the State institutions to foreign countries,” he said.

However, responding to a question raised by Daily Mirror Journalist, MP Vasudeva Nanayakkara said President Sirisena was only aware about the matters in the ministries under his direct purview. He said the President realised that he should not watch only his ministries but should pay attention on the rest as well.

“The recent protests and corruptions forced the President to interfere in the decisions taken by the Committee on Economic Reforms. He said the President was unaware about many matters as they had not happened in his ministry,” he said.

He also said the Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had involved Court cases against the land selling in Hambantota Port premises and threatened the Port Authority officials including their lawyers. As the case is to be heard today (13) he said that he could not comment on the matter further. However, he said that he didn’t have faith on the verdict, as the Rule Of Law has collapsed.