Karu calls for UNP to ‘play as a team’

• Former Deputy Leader says the main Opposition party has the best team to lead the country, but must stop hitting its own wicket
• Says people look to UNP as the party to rebuild an economy in shambles
  
   

By Dharisha Bastians

Former UNP Deputy Leader Karu Jayasuriya yesterday issued a clarion call for party unity yesterday, saying that the main opposition United National Party had the best possible team to lead the country out of the doldrums.

Addressing a media briefing in his private office in Kirulapone, the senior UNP Parliamentarian said that with the economy in shambles and ordinary people struggling to find ways to survive under crushing poverty, the country was beginning to look once more towards the UNP to lift the country out of grave economic turmoil.

“We have a very strong team.  What we need is amity and unity and a team concept. What matters is to play as a team without getting out hit-wicket. Then we can win. And our victory will be a victory of the people,” Jayasuriya said.

The UNP legislator said that with the rising cost of living and the burden of massive Government wastage and extravagance being passed on to the people, Sri Lankans were beginning to speak of the way the United National Front Government had turned a negative economy into a positive one in 2001. “The UNP planned massive economic development and stopped power cuts within the fixed time limits. During the UNF tenure, the Petroleum Corporation, Sri Lankan Airlines were making profits in billions, although they make losses now and the Ceylon Electricity Board which was a huge burden on the Government was close to becoming a profit making entity by 2004,” he said.

Jayasuriya charged that under the present regime, Sri Lanka had become a country that borrows money at commercial rates to pay its debts. He said that according to the latest statistics, by the end of 2012, every citizen was indebted to the tune of Rs. 300,000 in terms of Sri Lanka’s national debt.

“Billions are being wasted for development projects that are started with no feasibility studies. While the people suffer, the Government wastes money on creating a Lamborghini culture in Sri Lanka,” he charged.

He said that the ruling regime was insensitive to the economic burden being placed on the people, driving them to crime and suicide in some cases. The Government is intent instead on compounding the burden on the ordinary citizen, imposing taxation upon taxation in order to meet its burgeoning expenses.