MCC Pact shouldn’t be signed hurriedly before poll: MR

SLPP and Opposition Leader Mahinda Rajapaksa today said no agreement including the MCC Pact should be hurriedly signed with a foreign government just days before a decisive presidential election.

Issuing a statement, Mr. Rajapaksa said the Cabinet has decided to enter into a pact with the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) of the US.

He said the Prime Minister has said that the government intended signing this agreement before the presidential elections.

“It is now just over two weeks to the presidential elections. We wish to stress in the strongest possible terms that no agreement should be hurriedly signed with a foreign government just days before a decisive presidential election. Any such agreement should be signed if at all, only after the presidential election,” he said.

He said the contents of this proposed agreement are not known even to parliamentarians let alone the general public. “Before this agreement is signed, its text should be made public, presented to parliament and debated,” he said. 

Mr. Rajapaksa said the information available indicated that this agreement has to do with road development and land reform but the government has not explained what exactly this entails and what its impact will be on the country.

“If this agreement will be as beneficial to Sri Lanka as is made out, why is everything shrouded in secrecy? We wish to emphatically state that the government should not sign this agreement behind the backs of the general public and the parliament,” he said.