Rural people fallen prey to illegal loan schemes: Opposition Leader Mahinda Rajapaksa
Posted on April 4th, 2019
Ajith Siriwardana and Yohan Perera Courtesy The Daily Mirror
While claiming that people in rural areas had fallen prey to illegal loan schemes including micro-financing organisations, Opposition Leader Mahinda Rajapaksa today urged the government to take steps to ban such organisations and to waive off loans obtained by the people from such organisations.
He told parliament that it was important to introduce a micro-finance service at ground level to strengthen the rural economy.
Raising a question under Standing Orders 23/2, he said people including farmers and fisherfolk had mortgaged their property to these organisations and added that they had faced difficulty repaying the loans obtained by them as a result of not getting expected crop due to the prevailing drought.
He said even though the government promised through budget proposals to waive off overdue loans obtained by these innocent people, no step had been taken in that regard so far claiming that the organisations which had lent those loans cannot be identified.
April 4th, 2019 at 4:12 pm
This is true. The proposed solution is the right one – ban such organisations and to waive off loans obtained by the people from such organisations.
However, this is not what the government plans to do. They plan to do an economic disaster – the state to repay those loans or help people to repay these crooks! This is especially seen in the north. Our economic policy cannot be more stupid than this.