Will corrupt politicians rape SL’s “virgin economy” by trying to reap the benefits? (VIDEO)

Jan 28, 2018 Lahiru Fernando Local, News Ticker, Top Slider 0

The Government of Sri Lanka is desperately looking for foreign investments in Sri Lanka. This, is no secret.

The question is, to what level will Sri Lanka go, to get these investments?

“Come reap the benefits of Sri Lanka’s virginity” – This was the title of an article published by the ‘Ceylon Today’ newspaper today (January 28).

The article was quoting the sentiments of Malik Samarawickrama -the Minister of Development Strategies and International Trade.

Minister Samarawickrama had said this during a recent business forum with Indonesian busienssmen.

During the meeting, the minister had stated that Sri lanka was aiming at a private sector drivern export and FDI oriented growth model.

Rape the virgin economy?

Yes, we are a virgin Economy, and yes, we do need FDIs.

However, we should take special care to make sure we do not allow corrupt politicians and money laundering investors to rape this virgin economy.

Over the past 3 years, a number of changes have been made to key financial legislation to felicitate such aspirations.

Key among them were changes made to the Foreign Exchange Controls through the Foreign Exchange act No. 12 of 2017.

This change was brought in -very surreptitiously.

We at News 1st highlighted the perils of the new legislation and highlighted concerns by civil society that this legislation could lead to money laundering.

Financial Action Task Force

Even international organisations have realised the concerns News 1st raised multiple times.

The inter-governmental Financial Action Task Force has listed Sri Lanka among eleven ‘high risk and monitored jurisdictions’ that have taken insufficient measures to combat;