Government In Crisis Over Central Bank Governor
July 1, 2016
With a little over a month to go for the Maithripala Sirisena – Ranil Wickremesinghe coalition government to celebrate it’s first anniversary, the first signs of a split appeared this week over the appointment of a new Governor for Central Bank.
While Prime Minister Wickremesinghe insisted that his associate and senior advisor Charitha Ratwatte be appointed as Governor, President Sirisena had wanted to appoint the bank’s Deputy Governor Nandalal Weeresinghe, which resulted in a major deadlock between the two leaders.
*Ranil and Maithri – Photo courtesy Shehan Gunasekara/ Facebook
It is learnt that Sirisena had initially visited Central Bank on Wednesday afternoon with the intention of announcing Weeresinghe’s name as the 14th Governor of the Central Bank, but his plans was cut short after Wickremesinghe rushed to Central Bank with ex-Governor Arjuna Mahendran, to stop Sirisena from making the announcement.
On Wednesday morning, Sirisena addressing an event in Badulla announced that he will appoint the new governor ‘within a few hours,’ however more than one and a half days later; he is yet to make the announcement.
“President Sirisena was to make the official announcement at the Central Bank itself, but he was stopped by Prime Minister, who was unhappy with the President’s appointee and had insisted that Ratwatte be appointed as the new Governor,” sources told the Colombo Telegraph.
