The Chairman of the Committee on Public Finance (CoPF), MP Dr. Harsha de Silva states that the domestic debt restructuring should be carried out in a way that affects not only the ordinary working people, but also the rich.
The MP points out that the opposition had opposed the Domestic Debt Optimisation (DDO) strategy since the government had failed to do so.
“This provident fund [Employee’s Provident Fund] is usually the only fund that working people have to spend the rest of their lives following their retirement. I have continuously shown what has happened to this fund so far...”
“For example, if someone had needed to invite 100 people for his daughter’s wedding, hoping to spend money from the EPF, now he can only invite 50 people instead of 100 people. That is the truth”, the MP claimed.
“So, the domestic debt restructuring burden has also been placed on the same fund. That is where the question of fairness arose”, he said, adding that “if this is shared among everyone as a whole, it can be justified in some way”.
He mentioned that the burden should not only be borne by the working people but also by the rich and the bank owners.
“We, the opposition, strongly opposed the DDO strategy because the entire burden of this was placed on the Provident Fund [EPF] and the ETF”, de Silva expressed.
