Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, speaking at an interactive dialogue held on Wednesday April 8  titled The Prime Minister Speaks organised by the American Chamber of Commerce in Sri Lanka, noted that the Attorney General’s Department is compiling a list of violations, related to the Colombo Port City Project, which will be submitted to the company in the near future.

Prominent members of AMCHAM Sri Lanka, along with a distinguished cross section of the business community, were also present at the event this afternoon. The event was moderated by Director of English News at News1st, Shameer Rasooldeen.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe noted that there they have identified a number of economic goals targeting the younger generation such as creating one million jobs in five years. The Prime Minister noted that the key to achieving this goal is to create a highly competitive market economy.

Responding to questions raised on the Port City Project, PM Wickremesinghe noted that a task force headed by Mr. Ajitha de Costa has been appointed to formulate a list of all violations and after the task force submits its final report, appropriate action would be taken based on it.

Guests also questioned Deputy Minister of Policy Planning and Economic Affairs, Dr. Harsha de Silva, on the defeat of the bill to increase the Government’s Treasury Bill Debt Ceiling, in Parliament. He stated that this was not a loss for the Government. He added that rumours that the government did not have money to pay salaries of state sector workers were baseless lies.

State Minister of Defence Ruwan Wijewardene, was questioned on whether the government would be canceling contracts relating to the Akuregoda Defence Headquarters project. He noted that the project is under investigation since there have been allegations of malpractices with regard to the project. The State Minister noted that while the  cabinet approved 20 billion for the project the estimates suggest that a cost of around 42 billion would be incurred.

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