The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) agreement was drafted with the consent of the Attorney General and would be presented in Parliament, the Finance Ministry said today.It said the whole process and the final Agreements were done under the guidance of the Attorney General and well within the legal framework.It said in a statement that final negotiations on the Compact were conducted in October 2018 between the MCC and a Cabinet approved GoSL delegation which consisted of officials from the relevant Ministries and Government Agencies for implementing the selected projects including a representative from the Attorney General Department.The Attorney General is in the opinion that Agreements are in order and there exists no legal impediment to execute same.
A Cabinet Memorandum along with the final drafts of the Agreements was submitted on 31.05.2019 to the Cabinet of Ministers.
The Cabinet appointed a committee for further discussions of the matters in detail.
And subsequently, the Ministry of Finance submitted the Cabinet Memorandum dated 05.07.2019 seeking the approval of the Cabinet of Ministers for signing the Compact Agreement and the Program Implementation Agreement.
The Cabinet of Ministers has granted its approval for signing above Agreements on 29.10.2019,& the statement added.The Ministry said the Compact Agreement and the Program Implementation Agreement would be submitted to and enacted by Parliament of Sri Lanka once it was signed and before its entry into force and would be published in the Government Gazette before submitted to Parliament.