The Hon. Chithral Fernando, Attorney-at-Law

¶ 01 Please allow me one minute, Hon. Presiding Member.

¶ 02 I also wish to specifically speak on these Bills. Hon. Presiding Member, one way to show a government’s success is through law reforms — how many Bills are brought and how many laws are amended. In this Budget there are one or two mentioned, such as the State-Owned Commercial Business Management Bill, the State Functions Management Bill, and the Science Research Development Bill. But last year you listed eleven. Not a single one of those eleven was done. None. Instead, you did another ten, most of which were driven either by political expediency or by IMF insistence. If that is so, please do not say you will do these either. We want to state that when you set out to do these, it does not happen as claimed.

¶ 03 Finally, Hon. Presiding Member, let me say this. Generally, after an Appropriation Bill is presented, during the Budget debate, a Finance Minister can add more funds. That is an accepted international practice. But there is a reasonable cap to such increases, often between 10% and 30%, and typically for unforeseen expenditures or election expenses. Under this Bill, the “Prajashakthi” programme was allocated Rs. 4,250 million. However, you have now come and added another Rs. 20,000 million — Rs. 20 billion — bringing it to Rs. 25 billion in total. That is not the best international practice. If you look worldwide, whenever huge sums were added at once during a budget speech, it has frequently led to misuse. We understand that under the “Prajashakthi” programme you intend to engage in village-level politics. That is what we can infer.