Even President Sirisena has not seen the ETCA draft - Dr. Padeniya

February 25, 2016, 9:19 pm 

The Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) has spearheaded opposition to the proposed Economic and Technological Cooperation Agreement (ETCA) with India. This opposition was based on the information that the government had communicated to the GMOA about the proposed agreement. Politicians at all levels parliamentarians, political party leaders, and even the cabinet appear to have been kept completely in the dark about this agreement a draft of which had been secretly sent around to selected trade associations on condition of maintaining secrecy. It was the GMOA that blew the whistle on the whole process by publishing on their website the draft of the proposed ETCA with India. In this interview, C. A. Chandraprema speaks to Dr. Anuruddha Padeniya, President of the GMOA about the proposed agreement and the preparations being made to commence an Indian ambulance and pre-hospitalisation care service in Sri Lanka.

Q. The press reported the Prime Minister as having said during his tour of Hambantota that the GMOA had published a false copy of ETCA on their website. The government was keeping the draft of the ETCA with India a closely guarded secret and it is from the GMOA website that we all obtained a copy of the draft. So it is important to establish the authenticity of that document. Was it Minister Malik Samarawickrema who gave you that copy of the ETCA draft?

A. We have to be thankful to Minister Malik Samarawickrema. Before he came into the picture, all our meetings were with officials of the Trade Ministry and none of them gave us a proper set of documents. We got documents in a very unacceptable manner without signatures. Some of the documents that we got through the OPA were ones that Sri Lankan delegates at conferences had obtained from their Indian counterparts. For the first time we got a proper set of documents (which have not been finalised yet) from Mr Malik Samarawickrema. He also gave us a copy of a speech made by the Prime Minister on this matter and we uploaded both on our website and circulated them to our members. The draft of the ETCA with India was emailed to us by Mr Samarawickrema’s ministry. This is not a final document because they have invited the GMOA and other professional groups for another round of discussions. This document was emailed to us to initiate a dialogue. 

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