Hon. Mahinda Jayasinghe - Deputy Minister of Labour

¶ 01 Hon. Deputy Speaker, thank you. We will consider Hon. Faiszer Musthapha’s constructive ideas.

¶ 02 On the Gambling Regulatory Authority Bill, on regulations under the Public Debt Management Act, and under the Foreign Exchange Act, some Opposition Members are sowing fear in society. Why be afraid of an Authority to regulate gambling? For decades, gambling ran wild from every side, and the country went off the rails. We are bringing order. The Bill is to regulate—not to invite every ship to run gambling. This must be regulated; that is why we bring this Authority. We will not sit idle while everything goes astray. Perhaps some are afraid because they benefited from unregulated activities; I do not know. Our intention is to fix it.

¶ 03 On debt, there is noise that the Government takes huge loans after saying it would not. We never said we would not borrow. Before coming to power, we said we would borrow but our criticism was that past borrowing did not create productive assets. Audit reports indicated that only about 22% resulted in assets, many with poor utility. Our position: we will borrow for productive projects, not to fuel corrupt schemes.

¶ 04 We borrow within laws, with IMF frameworks and fiscal discipline—this is our Government’s policy. Those without fiscal discipline may find this amusing, but we will ensure every rupee is accounted for and used for public benefit.

¶ 05 On the North-East hartal: it failed. The people of the North and East—Tamils and Muslims—have repeatedly rejected divisive ethnic politics, as seen in the last elections. Some tried to stoke ethnic polarization both in the North and the South; the people rejected it. Yesterday’s hartal was a damp squib. We had hoped some leaders would remain centrist, but they too seem drawn into ethnic politicking.

¶ 06 We will continue with transparency and responsible governance.

¶ 07 Thank you.