Former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe today issued a special statement regarding the Colombo Port City Economic Commission Bill and urged the government to discuss the matter with all parties and safeguard the powers of the executive, the legislature and the judiciary.

Wickremesinghe said that in 2016 he proposed the creation of an international financial centre in Colombo to the Cabinet of Ministers and that they also decided to establish this centre in the Port City.

He said that laws were drafted for this financial centre as it was government’s responsibility while developing the infrastructure of the Port City and other affairs was the company’s responsibility. “We have also safeguarded that.”

He stated that they formulated a legal framework as a draft in order for it to be discussed and that in addition to this a number of other laws were required be passed from time to time. 

“We safeguarded the powers of the legislature, the judiciary and the Cabinet through this.”

However, he said that this new draft bill introduced by the incumbent government is much more dangerous and that the powers of the legislature, judiciary and the Cabinet have been completely stripped. 

“No such thing has occurred in any other country,” he said, adding that they would like to know as to why this is being done. He said that in no other country has the central bank or the governing commission given the authority to include casinos.

The former Prime Minister said that a big question has truly arisen as to whether what is going to be done in Sri Lanka is “money laundering” by combining these two.

Wickremesinghe requested the government to discuss this matter with all parties, organisations and religious groups because no one is against the establishing of a financial centre in the country.