Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is the ideal politician to work with President Maithripala Sirisena for the next five years and take Sri Lanka forward based on a strong foreign policy and meaningful development, UNP candidate Rosy Senanayake said today.

She told a news conference in Colombo, that the unique and unparalleled combination of the two politicians President Sirisena and Prime Minister Wickremeisnghe who would able to work together prudently for a better country.

“The only person who is capable of collaborating with our President Sirisena during the next five years and carry out the development plans is the Prime Minister. He has the confidence of the people and the President. This has been clearly shown in the President’s address to the nation where he said Mr. Wickremesinghe was known to be a politician untainted by corruption. That was why he selected him on January 8 to be the Prime Minister of the government,” Ms. Senanayake said.

She said the GSP+ benefits will soon be received to the Sri Lankan business system as a result of criteria and procedure followed by the UNP based government during past few months to re-gain the benefits which had later lost due to previous government’s action.

UNP Colombo district candidate Sujeewa Senasinghe said they were not able to halt the construction work or cancel the development projects such as the Chinese government funded Port City project and Colombo harbour initiated by the previous government even if several irregularities had taken place. "Therefore, we will negotiate with the investors and constructors on decreasing the expenses as possible to minimise the financial and other shortcomings," he said.

Mr. Senasinghe said new efficient systems would be established to locate further information regarding the alleged foreign bank accounts belonging to former president Mahinda Rajapaksa in many countries such as Switzerland and Saudi Arabia and to accelerate the proceedings of the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption. (Piyumi Fonseka and Darshana Sanjeewa)