25 June 2020 08:23 pm
The Expert’s Committee appointed to review the proposed Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC)agreement in its final report said the agreement contained many complications and negative consequences.
The final report of the Expert’s Committee was handed over to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa at the Presidential Secretariat today.
Committee Chairman Lalithasiri Gunaruwan, Professor of Economics of University of Colombo, has said that two stages of the MCC had been signed in 2017 and 2018.
“Although USD 7.4 million and 2.6 million had been granted under the two stages, no accounts details are to be found anywhere. Also no multi-sectorial analysis had been conducted by the focal points of the then Government entrusted with the task of reviewing before the signing of the Compact,” he said.
Prof. Gunaruwan said that after the adoption of the project as an Act of Parliament it would be a violation of the agreement to submit a counter-proposal or a resolution, relating to it.
“Any condition of the Compact can be amended by two representatives by a letter. Such an action amounts to a violation of the sovereignty of Parliament. It had created a situation where the Attorney General cannot represent the Government or go to Courts,” the Chairman said.
The Committee members who informed the President on the current status of countries which had implemented the MCC said the fate of these countries is tragic. (Lahiru Pothmulla)