Courtesy The Daily Mirror

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff level agreement which was to come in August this year has been delayed because of the unrest caused by some protesters whose agitation later turned violent, a cabinet Minister said today.

Minister of Labour and Foreign Employment Manusha Nanayakkara told a media briefing that the staff level agreement with IMF has been delayed because of the protests that later turned violent.

The World Food Organization Chief who was to visit Sri Lanka last week, put off his visit by a week while Sri Lankans have lost employment opportunities in some countries. These job offers have been awarded to people from African countries,” the Minister said.

What Sri Lanka needs today is political stability and peace,” he added.

There are peaceful protesters and insurgents who might plan to launch an arms struggle to capture power as they can never win elections. Our government will disarm these persons,” the Minister also said.

While stating that the government will always support peaceful protests, the Minister said they would be given locations to carry out their struggle. We will also come up with constitutional reforms and present them to  Parliament on the 22nd Amendment to the constitution on Wednesday. An exercise to bring in a new constitution under which the Executive Presidency would be scrapped, will also be introduced soon,” he said. (Yohan Perera)