Ranil launches “The Truth about the 2014 Budget” book

Friday, 13 December 2013 00:03 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Says relief from budget only for dogs and the richest 1% Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe said yesterday that the Government’s 2014 budget had provided relief only for dogs and the country’s richest 1$. Speaking at the launch of his book, ‘The Truth about the 2014 Budget’ at a reception hall in Kirulapone, Wickremesinghe said that the Government was lying about being unable to provide jobs to unemployed youth because of the war. “Both late President J.R. Jayewardene and late President Ranasinghe Premadasa created industrial zones during their tenures to

provide jobs for young people, and they were also fighting a war,” he charged. “Mahinda Rajapaksa who made the war an excuse for so long, four years after the war ended also can only boast about the closure of factories and not the creation of them,” the Opposition Leader said. Wickremesinghe said that if the UNP had not created power stations so many years ago, today most people in the country would be in the dark, given the Government’s track record. “This government offers relief only to the owners of Lamborghinis and Ferraris,” he charged. Also speaking at the launch, UNP Spokesman, Gayantha Karunathilake said Sri Lanka is becoming the “Wonder of Asia” as President Mahinda Rajapaksa promised for being the country to boast the highest taxes, highest power tariffs, highest cost of living and highest fuel prices in the world. “They harped about the glory of the Commonwealth Summit being held in Colombo but now that the bills have come to pay for it, they are silent,” Karunathilake charged. He said the Government’s deafening silence in the face of appeals from the religious leaders and the Mahanayakes to withdraw its plans to create a casino city in Colombo was ample indication of how much respect the regime had for the country’s religious leadership. “Similarly, spending millions to race Lamborghinis in Colombo’s streets when a majority of the people in this country are trying to figure out where their next meal is coming from tells us how much the Government cares about the people,” he said.