Budget debate: More politics than economics

The blood of our youth must cease to flow. Certainly there are problems but they can only be solved across a negotiating table and not by killing each other in the jungles of Wanni

By Chandani Kirinde, Our Lobby Correspondent

The main opposition parties huffed and puffed for several days against the second Budget presented by President Mahinda Rajapaksa, but instead of bringing the House down they decided to vote for it on Wednesday for varying reasons.

The JVP legislators were its harshest critics with one senior member calling it a ‘napunsaka’ budget. Some UNP members were equally unkind in their assessment of it, while the JHU decided to take the middle path and praise and criticise it in equal measure. It was only the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) that criticized the Budget and voted against it.

Mangala Samaraweera, Minister of Foreign Affairs

Obviously a lot of love has been lost between the JVP and the Government of President Rajapaksa since his election last year while the UNP is cozying up to the Government since the recent signing of the UNP/SLFP MOU.

It was JVP MP Chandrasena Wijesinghe who called it a ‘napunsaka’ Budget and said it provided no relief whatsoever to the people and was meant to hoodwink particularly the public servants. He was not alone in his criticism because all JVP speakers toed a similar line.

Another senior member Anura Kumara Dissanayake said that due to massive foreign borrowings totalling over Rs650 billion in the coming year as proposed by the Budget, each Sri Lankan citizen would be in debt to the tune of Rs. 155,000, an increase of Rs. 35,000 from the present individual debt rate of Rs. 120,000.

But finally, despite all the criticism, the JVP decided not to rock the boat. It fell on the Party’s Parliamentary group leader Wimal Weerawansa to explain why they would support the Budget. He said with the on-going war, the need of the hour was unity to protect the country’s sovereignty.

The UNP’s reasons for supporting the Budget were different. It was the Party’s new found friendship with the SLFP that necessitated them to vote for the Budget even though the majority of the UNP MPs too said it falls far short of the people’s expectations.

Even though a debate on the Budget should have concentrated more on economics than politics, the need to find a negotiated settlement to the national issue was the underlying message from the majority of parliamentarians. This importance was underscored by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Mangala Samaraweera who spoke at length on the measures taken since the President was elected to find a settlement to the issue as well as the chequered human rights record of the Government and said the Rajapaksa administration is not, cannot and will not be party to any human rights violations , wherever they may occur.

He also made an impassioned plea to end the killings “The blood of our youth must cease to flow. Certainly there are problems but they can only be solved across a negotiating table and not by killing each other in the jungles of Wanni,” the minister said.

The second reading of the Budget was passed with 133 members voting for and 18 against on Wednesday. On Thursday the committee stage of the Budget began but with so many ministries and so little time, legislators found it difficult to get very far in expressing their views.

The administration of Parliament itself was put in the spotlight by JVP MP K.D. Lal Kantha who said that there were many reports of irregularities taking place in Parliament. “How can we turn the spotlight on other institutions unless we put our house in order,” he asked.With less than three hours allotted to discuss eleven different institutions such as the Office of the President, the Prime Minister’s Office, the Supreme Court ,the Independent Commissions as well as several important departments, the time set aside was woefully inadequate for a fruitful discussion on the shortcomings in these institutions as well as ways to overcome them.

Minister of Religious Affairs Tisssa Karaliyadda put it in perspective when he said, “As a Buddhist, the time allocated is not even enough for me to recite the five precepts.”

Strangely it was only the Ministry of Mass Media and Information that was allocated the most number of hours for debate during which time , the state media came in for criticism by opposition members while Tamil legislators spoke on the threats to Tamil journalists as well as the lack of investigation into the killings of several media personnel in the past year.

Media Minister Anura Priyadharshana Yapa said the aim of his Ministry was to free journalists from the shackles of being anyone’s henchman. As to how he proposed to do this with a highly-controlled state media in place, he did not say.