Budgets not for the people, BT-RCB survey reveals
Most Sri Lankans say budgets don’t benefit the people while inflation and cost of living is still high contrary to Government pronouncements, a pre-budget poll jointly conducted by the Business Times (BT) and Research and Consultancy Bureau (RCB) shows.
Asked whether budgets are designed to serve the people and their aspirations, more than 60 per cent of the respondents in both surveys, polled separately last week, said ‘No’. To another question on whether respondents agree with the Government view that inflation and COL have come down; more than 75 per cent disagreed (‘No’ response).
The RCB poll was conducted during street interviews in eight districts – Colombo, Nuwara Eliya, Anuradhapura, Galle, Kandy, Batticaloa, Ampara and Kurunegala – among a total of 2,400 respondents, up from last year’s pre-budget poll sample of 1,317. The BT poll was through email with more than 300 respondents. Respondents in both polls, a trail-blazer in pre-budget surveys, came from a cross section of society and was based on a Finance Ministry call for suggestions from the public for the 2015 budget due to be presented in Parliament in November.To the question, “Does the process of collecting public views and suggestions for budget effectively reflect public opinion?” more than 55 per cent said ‘No’. Over 60 per cent of the respondents disagreed with the Government view that “taxes are for development purposes”. One respondent from the street poll in Colombo believed that the Finance Ministry call was a useless exercise. “Only the supporters (in this process) are consulted and (their views) released to the media. They don’t take the independent views of the public,” he said adding that, “if they take our views there is no need to spend much money in having Consultants for the President”.
He said the budget is a mechanism to popularize the regime. “Only the Central Bank (CB) and the state media statistics show a decline in the cost of living. Our living standards have sharply declined in the recent past,” this respondent said.
From Anuradhapura, a respondent said that while those days corruption was in the name of the war, today it is in the context of development.
A respondent from the email poll had this to say: “The Government’s definition of ‘development’ is different to that of the people’s. The majority of the people have no stake in the ‘development’ that is going on. Real development involves education, raising of living standards, means to grow personal economic and social wellbeing of the poorest, eradication of thuggery and lawlessness, etc”.
