The Hon. M. Nizam Kariapper, PC

¶ 01 Let us take one unit. Suppose one bus seat costs Rs. 2,500. If a bus ticket is Rs. 2,500 and a bus has 54 seats, then the daily turnover of that bus is around Rs. 100,000, Hon. Presiding Member. Then what happens to that operator? Now they have to register. Once registered, on a Rs. 2,500 bus fare I must pay 18 percent VAT. That means I have to pay roughly Rs. 450 more per ticket. So the bus ticket price approaches Rs. 3,000. In the end, it is the public who are made to pay more. Is this your policy of socially just taxation? It is astonishing.

¶ 02 There was a nice speech earlier by an Hon. Member who is not in the Chamber now. I have great regard for him; he speaks Sinhala and Tamil eloquently. Let us now look at the plantation workers’ wage increase. How much has been allocated for that? Rs. 5,000 million. Great, isn’t it?

¶ 03 Is it good or not? I will answer that. Thank you very much to the Hon. Member for asking. Of those estates, how much belongs to the private sector? About 60 percent. These are private companies, large business entities. If those companies can pay an extra Rs. 200 per worker, why should we pay it out of the people’s tax money? It is unnecessary. Those companies make profits in the tens of millions, even billions. Therefore, ask them to contribute. From the Rs. 5,000 million, about Rs. 4,000 million could be reduced on that basis.

¶ 04 Hon. Presiding Member: Hon. Member, you have two more minutes.

¶ 05 Am I already out of time? In summary, I have been highlighting the issues in this document. For example, if a small retail shop in Kalmunai, Pottuvil, or Nuwara Eliya makes Rs. 100,000 turnover a day, you require VAT registration and then collect 18 percent VAT from the people. Likewise, if we buy a Rs. 2,500 bus ticket from Kalmunai to Colombo and that bus with 54 seats earns Rs. 100,000 a day, it must register for VAT, and the passengers will have to pay roughly Rs. 500 more as VAT. That is my point.

¶ 06 This is a fairy tale. My time is ending. I have a set of pictures here. We do not have an opportunity to display them. This is a BAG post on Facebook about the President’s Budget Speech. On that historic speech day, two significant things happened: one was the President’s four-and-a-half-hour speech; the other was our Hon. MP Dr. Archchuna’s nap. You may have seen the post: “MP Archchuna sleeps comfortably during the President’s Budget Speech. The only one who benefited from Anura’s fairy tale four hours was him.” That is the truth. If needed, take a look.

¶ 07 Next, I will end with the story of Archimedes’ wife, as mentioned by Minister Prasanna Gunasekara. I might need 30 seconds more; I will finish quickly.

¶ 08 If you are Archimedes, then who ran naked last December on the 7th? If so, shouting “Eureka! Eureka! We achieved economic stability,” who misled the people and ran naked? It was you and your Finance Minister. With that, I conclude my speech. Thank you.