Opposition leader says the rich will pay more if he becomes president

Opposition leader and the presidential candidate of United People’s Power Sajith Premadasa

Sri Lanka’s opposition leader contesting the presidential election next week said yesterday that if he comes to power he will renegotiate with the International Monetary Fund the 2022 economic reforms package to ensure that the rich pay more taxes and the poor see their conditions improve. The reforms were introduced after Sri Lanka defaulted on its foreign debt creating the worst economic crisis in its history.

Sajith Premadasa, the opposition leader in Parliament told The Associated Press in an interview that his party has already started discussions with the IMF to find ways to ease the tax burden on the people.

“We will be embarking on the third path, the middle path, the path is where wealth is created, the country grows and the wealth is equitably distributed,” Premadasa said.

He said there needs to be “fundamental changes” to the current agreement between the IMF and Sri Lanka’s government but those should be in a more “humanistic manner” to ensure that the burden on the people is lessened.

“And if there are burdens that have to be imposed, the super-rich and the rich have to disproportionately take a bigger share of the burden rather than the working men and women of Sri Lanka.”

Sri Lanka is in the middle of reforms and a debt restructuring program under an IMF agreement whereby taxes have been increased to boost state revenue. After the island nation defaulted on its foreign debt in 2022, borrowing was reduced and the printing of new currency notes was stopped by law.

The opposition parties say however that many of the wealthy and those with connections with the authorities don’t pay their taxes and the burden is borne by the middle classes and the poor through income taxes and value-added tax on goods and services.

The presidential election on September 21 is seen as a referendum on the reforms initiated by President Ranil Wickremesinghe. They have improved key economic figures, but their effects have yet to reach many ordinary people.

Premadasa criticized Wickremesinghe’s economic policies saying that he is trying to find solutions through contraction. Premadasa said his policy is to “grow out of the problem” through an export-oriented, knowledge-based economy.

Premadasa, 57, is the son of a former president late Ranasinghe Premadasa who was assassinated by an ethnic Tamil separatist suicide bomber in 1993. KRISHAN FRANCIS, COLOMBO, MDT/AP