Businessman Dhammika Perera says he will take on the responsibility of bringing the first US $ 1 billion to Sri Lanka under the ‘Golden Paradise Program’.
The Golden Paradise Program, a proposal made by Dhammika Perera to the Government to help Sri Lanka overcome its current foreign exchange crisis, is a program to provide foreigners with long-term resident visas to Sri Lanka.
Dhammika Perera has suggested in his program that if a foreigner who wishes to obtain residency through this program, he/she must first open a bank account in Sri Lanka and deposit US $ 100,000 in it. After one year, the person can withdraw up to US $ 50,000 from that amount. And from the second year onwards he/she must maintain a balance of at least US $ 50,000 in the account for the entire duration of their stay in the country.
He had also proposed to issue 10-year visas to foreigners over a monthly income of more than US $ 2,000 and over 60 years of age.
The proposal for the program was submitted to President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa by Dhammika Perera last month. The President had given his approval and directed the Secretary to the President Gamini Senarath to prepare the necessary preliminary work within a week to implement this.
Accordingly, the preliminary work was prepared within a week and then the relevant Cabinet Paper was prepared and submitted to the Cabinet by Minister Namal Rajapaksa for Cabinet approval.
Businessman Dhammika Perera told LNW that he would prepare the necessary arrangements to implement this program as soon as the initial approvals were received.
Currently, the bureaucratic approach taken by Sri Lankan immigration officials is the main obstacle to the speedy implementation of a program to issue long-term resident visas to foreigners in Sri Lanka. They seem to be carrying out their procedures for an excessive period of time which makes the people very uncomfortable. (Red tapism) This is a very backward and harmful situation that can be seen in many parts of the public sector in our country.
As a solution to this, Dhammika Perera says that almost all the approval processes should be planned in such a way that foreigners can do it online. Approval in principal will be granted upon deposit, and Visa applicants in the ‘Golden Paradise Program’ will be able to complete all other tasks online without undue bureaucratic interference.
Dhammika Perera also said that he would carry out the necessary international publicity to attract foreigners to implement the program, adding that he would take up the challenge of raising the first billion US dollars for Sri Lanka through this proposal.
Sri Lanka is expected to raise US $ 5 billion in foreign exchange through this program.
