President urges Parliament to pass Inland Revenue (Amendment) Bill expeditiously

By Saman Indrajith

President Ranil Wickremesinghe told Parliament yesterday that the decision to pay the EPF members an annual interest of 9% had not been made by him.

“We have agreed to pay nine percent. It wasn’t decided by me. Before I became Prime Minister in May 2022. It was decided by the SLPP government. Some of those MPs are now in the Opposition. They are on the government side too,” President Wickremesinghe said.

“Don’t pin the blame on me. We have to take this forward,” he said, adding that the Supreme Court had determined that Sri Lanka’s new Inland Revenue (Amendment) Bill could be passed by a simple majority and therefore Parliament had to ratify it. “The matter needs to be finalised by the end of the week,” he said.

However, the Bill had to go through either the Committee on Public Finance (COPF) or an advisory committee, chaired by Wickremesinghe

prior to being taken up in Parliament, he said.

“I haven’t sent it to the Advisory Committee. The COPF Chairman wanted to discuss it.

“I told my Secretary to provide the COPF with necessary information.

“If information leaks, it will be damaging to the country. We must finish all this by next week.”

President Wickremesinghe said that the domestic debt restructuring plan would not be inimical to the EPF.