President-elect should appoint a corruption free Cabinet, says outgoing President
Challenges ...include poverty alleviation as well as heralding togetherness and reconciliation among Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims, Malays, Burghers and others
That is because of the conflict within the Government
President Maithripala Sirisena said the first major challenge of the new President-elect would be to appoint a Cabinet from among the 225 members of Parliament who doesn’t have corruption allegations against them.
Addressing the nation for the last time, outgoing President Sirisena assured to offer his support to the new administration to build a democratic society and a prosperous economy in the Motherland.
President Sirisena while thanking the 6.2 million voters for electing him to lead the country on January 08, 2015, said he did not run for a second term as promised.
“I believe that I was able to fulfil many of the promises given in my election manifesto and achieved many of them on behalf of the country and people,” he said and added. “Yet, it was no secret that policy battles, political battles between me and members of my administration caused serious clashes within the Government but none of them was personal.”
“Consequently, just as we, as a Government, completed a considerable programme of work within the past five years but were unable to complete some essential tasks on behalf of the people,” he said.
“That is because of the conflict within the Government,” he stressed.
President Sirisena gave himself credit for having ushered in and strengthened democracy through the 19th Amendment to the Constitution and delegated some of his powers to Parliament. The Cabinet, independent commissions and the judiciary were strengthened and willingly gave up one year of the six-year term for which he was elected.
He said there was democratic and media freedom to a degree not experienced before. This freedom was made use of by electronic and print media outlets and social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and SMS to humiliate him, to assassinate his character and to spread lies through social media. “None of that discouraged me,” he said. “That’s because it was my policy,” he noted.
When he took over, his motherland faced severe pressures from foreign forces, interference and threats. He compared the current situation with that of 2014 before he took over. During his term, he dispelled 99 percent of international pressures, interference, threats and war crimes allegations. “There was the talk of setting up an international court here,” he said. “There were global challenges to the sovereignty of the country. Today, we are free of all these.” “There are challenges for the future. They include poverty alleviation as well as heralding togetherness and reconciliation among Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims, Malays, Burghers and others. The foundations have to be created for the people of this country to live as one family.
“You know I took tough political decisions against corruption and irregularities,” he said, pointing out that he set up commissions investigate bribery and corruption in his administration– possibly the only Government leader to do so.
These bodies inquired into the Central Bank financial scam and corruption in public institutions.
Suspects were indicted. Investigations are still ongoing. Forensic audits were carried out on the Central Bank matter, he noted. He expressed hope that the reports would be presented to Parliament by the incoming Government.
“This is the first time since 1947 that a national election, Presidential election, was conducted under a neutral Head of State,” President Sirisena said.
“From when nominations were presented till today, I created a background for the military to fully support the National Elections Commission’s work and made provisions for an extremely peaceful election to be held around the country,” he said.