Ranil the man of the hour, says UNP Chairman

by Piyasena Dissnanayke

Ranil Wickremesinghe is right person to save the country from its present predicament and others should extend their cooperation to him to steer the nation out of present crises, says UNP Chairman and former minister Vajira Abeywardena.

“We are all in this crisis together. There is only one person with the expertise required to solve this crisis. That is our leader Ranil Wickremesinghe. Only he can save us from this crisis and imminent catastrophe of our country being labeled bankrupt.

“We have two choices before us – either give control to Wickremesinghe and support him to save the country from crisis, or look at others who have no plan, vision or contacts to stop us sliding further into the abyss,” Abeywardena told a UNP meeting at Galle on Thursday.

He said that the absence of proper policies had been the bane of our nation. “Compared to other nations who have succeeded during the past decades, we lack a continued policy regime that does not change national policies with changes of government.

“The UNP is happy that the government has finally made up its mind to go to the International Monetary Fund for help. It was Ranil who first suggested that as a preliminary measure months ago.

“Now the situation has changed for the worse and going to the IMF will not solve all our problems. We now we have to approach multilateral and bilateral sources of credit and for that we need the trust of lenders. Ranil can do this while also going to the IMF to help build our credibility,” Abeywardena said.