The Hon. R.M. Ranjith Madduma Bandara

¶ 01 Hon. Deputy Speaker, most public servants voted for the JVP–NPP. How have you increased their salaries? In this Budget, the lowest-level public servant gets only Rs. 6,800 more. Rs. 5,000 of that is the allowance given earlier by Ranil Wickremesinghe. So the net increase is Rs. 1,800. You said all allowances would be consolidated into the basic salary—this benefits only at pension time. Your Government will not be in office then; it will be ours that must pay. Annual pension liability is about 25,000 crore. There are 1.45 million public servants. You have deceived them.

¶ 02 Deputy Minister Mahinda Jayasinghe is not in the Chamber. You promised to implement the Subodinee Salary Commission recommendations to increase teachers’ salaries. Teachers protested across the country. The previous Government implemented one-third of the increase. Today, nothing of the remaining two-thirds has been done. You deceived teachers. Go to a school today—teachers are against you.

¶ 03 You allocated only Rs. 1,000 million for principals’ allowances and difficult-area allowances—grossly inadequate. For public servants’ housing loans, only Rs. 500 million is allocated; with a maximum loan of Rs. 5 million each, only around 100 people can benefit. This is how you deceive public servants through the Budget proposals. For distress loans, you allocated Rs. 10,000 million. There are 1.4 million public servants. Under our Government, all 1.4 million could access distress loans when needed—for housing, goods, or children’s education. Now you have curtailed that right.

¶ 04 You issued vehicle permits to executive-grade officers—doctors, engineers, principals, and university administrators—so they could own homes and strengthen the economy. Some 19,000 permits were issued. The President then said not one more would be given. You took 75 percent of public servants’ votes. As MPs, we say we do not need vehicle permits. But today doctors’ posts—especially in rural areas—remain vacant; the number of engineers is limited; there are only 6,500 university academics when 11,000 are needed. Do you want to push the rest abroad too? We request that those who already received permits under past Governments be allowed to import vehicles under those 19,000 permits. We do not need permits, but let executive officers use theirs. Instead, you are imposing exorbitant taxes on vehicles and boasting of Rs. 550 billion in tax revenue—money effectively taken from public servants’ pockets.

¶ 05 We have more to say on agriculture on that Head day. For now, even after speaking for four and a half hours, there are no benefits for farmers, public servants, fishers, the private sector, or entrepreneurs. We asked the President then: Hold Provincial Council Elections. But you are afraid. You want to amend the law first. After the General Election, your vote dropped by 2.3 million at Local Government Elections; another 2.5 million will drop—hold elections if you are not afraid. We challenge you: you claim you will reduce to 3 percent, but it will drop by around 6 percent. I fall silent issuing that challenge to this Government that fears elections.

¶ 06 Thank you.