Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa says that the unethical conduct of the current government, the false statements, corruption and persecution of political opponents, have resulted in the No-Confidence Motion against the Prime Minister.
Issuing a statement on Sunday June 7, Rajapaksa said this is probably the first time in the history of the Westminster Parliamentary tradition that such a large proportion of MPs have signed a No-Confidence Motion.
In his statement, the former President notes that while half the sitting members of parliament have signed the No-Confidence Motion against the Prime Minister, the situation is not surprising, given the unethical conduct of the government, of which he too has been at the receiving end.
Rajapaksa notes that about a week ago, the Prime Minister said at a press conference that a sum of 28 billion rupees, obtained on credit by the Highways Ministry cannot be accounted for and that he had probably misused all the money to pay for helicopter rides and to provide free meals to people.
However, Rajapaksa claims that Highways Ministry records prove what the short-term NSB loan was used for and that the Prime Minister was not speaking the truth when he said that 28 billion rupees had been used for purposes other than building roads.
The former president says that while propagating falsehoods about the misuse of funds during his tenure, the government is mired in a massive Treasury Bond scam which has already caused a loss of Rs.50 billion.
In the meantime, Rajapaksa writes, that the specially set up ‘Gestapo’ like police unit, has been jailing the government’s political opponents.
