Since the Cabinet finally gave its nod to go ahead with the Millennium Challenge Compact (MCC) last Tuesday (29 October) the two countries are now gearing up to the final few stages before the agreement is signed.
The Finance Ministry, issuing a statement said the agreement will be gazetted and tabled in Parliament before signing with the US.
Denying false accusations that the Government will sign the agreement claimed to be detrimental to the country, Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera said the agreement will first be tabled in Parliament and gazetted before signing.
Meanwhile, a statement purported to be issued by Archbishop Malcum Cardinal Ranjith was being circulated shared initially by the official Facebook page of the Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA).
The statement said that such an agreement should be signed by the Government only after obtaining approval and general consensus of the public on the matter. However, once they came to know that the signing of the agreement was not yet scheduled the Archbishop’s office didn’t send the letter but the GMOA had already disseminated it through their official Facebook page.
According to sources in the Archbishop’s office the letter was not sent after it came to their knowledge that the agreement was not scheduled to be signed yet.
In response to negative responses and claims that the Government is going to sign an agreement detrimental to the country without informing the public the Ministry of Finance took steps to release a draft contract of what would be signed between Sri Lanka and the US.
Meanwhile, the GMOA has filed a Fundamental Rights Petition in the Supreme Court against the signing of such agreement between the two countries.