What I learnt from my school is, irrespective of one being privileged at birth, it is equality which matters. When we were on the playing field it was always about who had the better defence to open batting, who was more accurate in swinging the ball and who was the most alert for the slips- the discussion was about that. It never occurred to us that somebody was Tamil or Muslim because always the focus was on commonality. That sense didn’t prevail even among teachers.

Q: What made you quit a high profile office as the CEO of National Development Bank PLC (now known as NDB Bank) and take up politics which undoubtedly would have been challenging and at the same time entailed a colossal financial loss?

A: When one makes a transition, it is the family that will bear the brunt and consequences of it. In my case too, the biggest challenge was not for me but for my family. My decision to come into politics is not considered a personal decision because I found out that when I first came in, that I was the first CEO of a public quoted company ever to come into the Sri Lankan Parliament. If you are 40 plus and well accomplished in your profession and you have a couple of grown up kids who still haven’t got into university or professional education, the risk is greater because between 40 and 50 are the years where your savings got to rise, so that you can take care of your family and your children. But really, the country needs you at 40 despite the barriers to enter politics. I came into politics hoping that at some point we could remove that barrier so that others too could come in.

Today the software industry generates an income close to a billion dollars for the country, this is something we can be proud of however our dreams have always been much more.

In the past the Government adopted a model that centered around economic activity meaning it was the public investment program of six or seven percent that drove the economy. The next Government needs to be an enabling Government, actively creating opportunities for the private sector to flourish via continuous investment.

We need better candidates. Unfortunately none of the proposals that were forwarded so far on this issue are being discussed. There are no qualifications, actually as to who should contest at an election. It is being left open and as you have rightly pointed out even the National List has been left open and therefore parties have put all kinds of people on the National List with different backgrounds.

I think there is a call in the country for better candidates and my view is that if a young person is entering politics, we should insist on having some level of education; either they should have a professional qualification or a University qualification.

But if people who are older and let’s say 40 years or something, they need not have formal education in terms of professional or University education, because they have a lot to offer too because after all they too have come through the school of life or the University of life and that is very important in politics. But what I can say is that none of these Amendments will ensure that the quality of candidates will improve.

Deputy Minister of Highways, Higher Education and Investment Promotion Eran Wickremaratne says that they have been unable to establish a United National Party government as yet.

The Deputy Minister made this statement when speaking at a public meeting in Avissawella. The Minister said that the change made on January 8 was “the President.”

My interview with Daily Mirror

When you were in the Opposition, you used to criticise the then government for failing to attract Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) sufficiently. Now you are in charge of the investment portfolio. What are your plans for investment promotion?

There are two main things that are being done in this respect. One is giving incentives for investors to come. The second aspect is to improve the environment for enabling investments.

Despite having tax concessions, even after the end of war in May, 2009, there is hardly any significant increase in investments. At the end of 2014, the country got only one billion US dollars in terms of FDI. If you take comparable countries such as Malaysia and Vietnam, on a per capital basis, they get volumes of FDI two or three times higher than Sri Lanka. Our FDI level has been low for a long time.