The Hon. Asitha Niroshana Egoda Vithana

¶ 01 They are panicking now, reciting verses on their way past Kanatte. Those prepared to go to prison are trembling before people’s power. We must also stop the flow of drugs into Hambantota and Beliatta, including via Kirinda and Guru Pokuna harbours. We are taking steps; some are getting nervous.

¶ 02 This is our first Budget. A Budget is not just numbers; it touches lives—farmers, fishers, people in remote villages, and those marginalized by the economy for generations. This is a citizens’ Budget, founded on humanity. All 159 of our MPs are children of ordinary mothers and fathers, educated in public schools and universities, treated in public hospitals, hailing from rural and estate communities, from the North and East and South. This Budget is rooted in the sorrows and aspirations of those remote communities.

¶ 03 Accordingly, we have made wide social allocations: Rs. 161 billion for low-income households; Rs. 36.9 billion for persons with disabilities; provisions for seniors over 70 and over 100; funds for kidney patients and schoolbooks. Senior citizens’ deposit interest had fallen drastically; we allocate Rs. 15 billion to add an extra 3% interest.

¶ 04 We have provided for people who pawned belongings, for the visually impaired, and—unprecedentedly—for persons with autism. About 2% of the world’s population live with autism; in Sri Lanka around 2,000 births annually may be on the spectrum, and in 2017 some 4,500 first-year entries were recorded. We allocate Rs. 200 million—for comparison, former Ministers Keheliya Rambukwella, Johnston Fernando, and Prasanna Ranatunga collectively took Rs. 245 million in housing advance “ransoms.” In a bankrupted country we can only allocate Rs. 200 million for autistic children while Rs. 245 million of public money was grabbed by those ministers. That is why the people are rising.

¶ 05 We also do justice to history. On 31 May 1981, the Jaffna Public Library was burned—a great black mark. Under J.R. Jayewardene’s rule, Cabinet Ministers Ranil Wickremesinghe, Gamini Dissanayake, Festus Perera, and Cyril Mathew were sent to Jaffna and that library was burned. That atrocity sowed division and war. To begin healing, we allocate Rs. 100 million to rebuild and digitize the Jaffna Public Library, extending the hand of the South to our brothers and sisters in the North.

¶ 06 This Budget is not merely arithmetic; it is a human document that invites every stratum and touches every heart. Thieves and the corrupt will oppose it; the people will embrace it. Thank you.