IMF agreement claim triggers fresh political firestorm as Udaya Gammanpila questions rejected dollars and Uganda money allegations.
The IMF agreement has become the centre of a fresh political controversy after lawyer and Pivithuru Hela Urumaya leader Udaya Gammanpila questioned whether it was being used as an excuse to block foreign dollar donations, including the alleged recovery of US$ 18 billion from Uganda.
Gammanpila expressed these views at a media briefing held at the head office of the Pivithuru Hela Urumaya party.
He recalled that the entire country had witnessed renowned artist Mr. Sangith Wijesuriya stating that if President Anura Dissanayake won the election, his friend in England, Nishantha Weerasinghe, would donate US$ 1 million to Sri Lanka.
Gammanpila said Sangith Wijesuriya was not a liar. According to him, as soon as the Malimawa government came to power, Wijesuriya arrived with his English friend Nishantha Weerasinghe, bringing not only US$ 1 million but US$ 23 million, and met the President.
He said the President then referred them to another person, introducing him as the “Finance Minister,” in order to discuss the matter.
Gammanpila questioned who this mysterious person was. He asked why the President introduced an unknown individual as the “Finance Minister” when, according to the gazette notification, the post of Finance Minister is held by President Anura Dissanayake himself.
He asked whether a new Finance Minister had been appointed, and if so, why that person’s name had not been published in a gazette.
He further questioned whether the President, while still holding the portfolio of Finance Minister, had pretended that someone else was occupying that position when speaking to his party colleague, Mr. Sangith Wijesuriya.
Gammanpila then referred to an old story about a young JVP member named “Aguru Kumara” from the Thambuttegama area. During the 1987-89 terror period, when the army came to the village asking who Aguru Kumara was, he allegedly pointed to someone else and said, “he is Aguru Kumara,” before escaping.
Gammanpila asked whether, in the same way, the President, while holding the position of Finance Minister himself, had pointed to someone else when speaking to brother Sangith. He said these were questions that made one think deeply and caused “brain cramps.”
However, Gammanpila said this mysterious person, the so-called Finance Minister to whom the President had referred them, must be found and punished for what he described as a crime committed against the country.
He called that person a traitor, claiming that by citing the IMF agreement, he had rejected a US$ 23 million donation brought to Sri Lanka by artist Mr. Sangith Wijesuriya.
Gammanpila said that, as someone who had read the IMF agreement several times in full, he could state with responsibility that there was no clause in the agreement preventing Sri Lanka from accepting foreign donations.
He asked that if such a clause existed, how Sri Lanka accepted aid from countries and organizations around the world during the Cyclone Ditwa period.
He said the country only knows about the rejection of the US$ 23 million referred to by Mr. Sangith Wijesuriya. But he asked how many more such dollar windfalls this mysterious Finance Minister may have prevented from entering the country.
Gammanpila claimed that, to be honest, the person responsible for the current dollar crisis was none other than this mysterious Finance Minister.
He argued that if Sri Lanka had accepted the dollars that came into the country instead of rejecting them on the instructions of this person, the rise of the dollar could have been prevented.
He said the mysterious individual whom the President, as Finance Minister, introduced to Mr. Sangith Wijesuriya must be found immediately and punished for the damage caused to the country.
Gammanpila warned that if this person was not punished immediately, Minister Sunil Handunnetti would soon appear before the media and say, “I introduced my Canadian friend to that Finance Minister as well, and I couldn’t bring in the million dollars because he showed the IMF agreement and said it wasn’t possible.”
He said that after that, the “Bindu Pura” citizen and General Secretary Tilvin Silva would also say, “We had arranged everything to bring in about US$ 1.5 billion through the party’s international branches, but this Finance Minister showed the IMF agreement and said it wasn’t possible, that’s why I couldn’t bring the dollars.”
Gammanpila then said the person who would find the most excuses would be “Uganda Kumari.”
According to him, “Uganda Kumari” would say, “I found the US$ 18 billion that Mahinda Rajapaksa hid in Uganda. Anjanandevi helped me. When I tried to bring it, our Finance Minister said, ‘How, how, if that violates the IMF agreement, don’t do it,’ that’s why I couldn’t bring the US$ 18 billion. Don’t blame us, it wasn’t us who signed the IMF agreement, it was Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe.”
Gammanpila therefore proposed that a Presidential Commission of Inquiry be appointed immediately to investigate the funds that this mysterious Finance Minister allegedly caused the country to lose by waving the IMF agreement.
He said such a commission should also recommend punishment for the mysterious Finance Minister.
Addressing the President, Gammanpila said there was no need to search for all rejected donations since 1948. He argued that by the time such an inquiry reached the current Finance Minister, an even larger amount of money may have been lost to the country.
Therefore, he said it would be enough to investigate from 2024 onwards.
Gammanpila said the deeper problem was that the people of the country still believed such blatant lies.
He stated that he had posted a poll on his “Udaya Gammanpila” YouTube channel asking: “Is there a condition in the IMF agreement that prohibits Sri Lanka from accepting dollar donations, as stated by Mr. Sangith Wijesuriya? Yes / No.”
According to him, 10% of respondents had answered “Yes.”
Gammanpila said the fact that 10% of the public believed such obvious falsehoods showed that the country’s fate was already sealed for the next election as well.
