Sunday Dec 07, 2025
Sunday Dec 07, 2025
Saturday, 21 December 2013 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
By Ashwin Hemmathagama Our Lobby Correspondent
President Mahinda Rajapaksa who visited Parliament one hour before the final vote was taken on the Government’s Budget for 2014 urged Opposition members to refrain from underestimating his administration’s economic policy statement and look forward to the changes that will take place in the next 13 years.
The President who expressed appreciation for the lively debates in the House over the past month, called on all legislators to join forces to create a long term national economic plan focused on developing Sri Lanka.
“Not only Government members but some Opposition members have also expressed positive sentiments towards the Budget 2014,” he said.
The President said that UNP MP Dr. Harsha de Silva who was keen on addressing financial issues had shown that reducing the budget deficit to 5.8% this year from 9.9% as an important step. “Next year the deficit will be 5.2% and in 2016 it will be further reduced to 3.8% is also valued by him. Building such consensus and agreement will help us to build trust,” the President said.
President Rajapaksa went on to say that the Opposition also agrees that all governments that came into power since independence had maintained high budget deficits.
The President said that the Leader of the Opposition had told newspapers that the Rajapaksa administration was constantly borrowing. “This is an unfair statement. There is a big difference between the governments he led and what we are doing now. We maintained a 6% budget deficit at least by investing money for infrastructure development. But those governments had a high budget deficit without even developing the infrastructure. We need to understand this change. We have reduced the national debt from 104% to 75% of the GDP,” said President Rajapaksa.
In his speech President Rajapaksa also urged the Tamil leaders of the Opposition to come together with the government to find a national solution and achieve reconciliation.
He emphasised the need for all parties to act together to resolve the ethnic issue and achieve national reconciliation.
The President requested the leader of the Tamil National Alliance R. Sampanthan and Chief Minister of Northern Province C.V. Vigneswaran to join hands with the government to create national harmony. He noted that the government's Budget is being passed in Parliament in parallel to the passing of the budget of the newly established Northern Provincial Council.
He asked the opposition to correct the government's path by presenting constructive criticism. Sri Lanka can set an example to all the other countries affected by internal conflicts. However, the President asserted that there will be no room for terrorism to resurface. The third and the final reading of the Budget 2014 was passed in Parliament yesterday with a majority of 95 votes. Sixty members voted against the Budget 2014 while 155 voted in favour.
Those who voted against were main opposition UNP, Tamil National Alliance, and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna.
Meanwhile Reuters in its report said Sri Lanka’s Parliament passed the 2014 budget by a 95-vote majority on Friday, approving a plan to reduce its fiscal deficit to a 36-year low of 5.2% of gross domestic product amid opposition allegations of economic data manipulation.
The budget was passed with 155 votes for and 60 against in the legislature in which President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s ruling party has a more than a two-thirds majority.
Rajapaksa, wrapping up the 24-day budget debate, said Sri Lanka’s debt-to-GDP ratio had now declined to 75% from around 80% last year.
The island nation aims to reduce the debt to 65% of GDP by 2016.The Government aims to cut the 2014 fiscal deficit to an ambitious 5.2% of GDP, its lowest since 1977, from an estimated 5.8% this year, the level the Government committed to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which fully disbursed a $ 2.6 billion loan in July last year.
Throughout the budget debate, opposition legislators claimed that the Government has been manipulating economic data to show a rosy picture of the island nation’s $ 59 billion economy.
Rajapaksa’s ruling party rejected the allegation.
The island nation targets over 7.5% annual economic growth in each of the next three years from this year’s revised down target of a minimum 7.2%.
