The trade union collective of professionals says their demands were not met at the meeting held with President Ranil Wickremesinghe today (Feb. 25).
Speaking to the media following the discussion, Secretary of the Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA), Dr. Haritha Aluthge pledged to continue their trade union action.
Dr. Aluthge said, “We informed [the President] that we cannot afford to pay the revised taxes. The President admitted that our proposals are fair. [...] He invited us, as professionals, to join the talks with IMF representatives. We believe that we did not receive a positive response to call off the series of protests planned to be launched on March 01.”
According to the GMOA secretary, the President, during the discussion, has stressed that the country cannot ride out the economic crisis without the IMF bailout package. The President has also noted that revising the taxes again before reaching a final agreement with the IMF can have a negative impact, he added. “But we do not accept the fact that this is the case.”
Speaking further, he vowed to continue the trade union action until their demands are met.
A meeting between the trade union representatives and President Wickremesinghe commenced at 10.30 a.m. this morning at the Presidential Secretariat.
The meeting was reportedly held in order to discuss the government’s new tax policy.
Representatives of 40 member trade unions of the professionals’ trade union collective have taken part in the discussion.
Speaking to the media earlier, GMOA Secretary mentioned that they expect some positive response from the President following today’s discussion.
“We hope to inform the Ministry of Finance including the President and the relevant parties about how this can be done without affecting the overall revenue of the government and how fair our demands are. We hope we will get some positive response from the President after today’s discussion.”
“The next few weeks are very crucial”, he added.
Dr. Aluthge further pointed out that all the professionals have lined up against this unfair tax policy so far. ”The government must find a permanent solution to stop the country from becoming dysfunctional”, he stressed.
