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Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake yesterday declared the defeat of the no confidence motion against him was a victory for all people and not for him. He made this remark when he was received with garlands at his residence close to Parliament soon after the defeat of a no confidence vote against him by 94 votes. Karunanayake said the victory would further reinforce the Yahapalanaya of the President Maithripala Sirisena-Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe Government
By Ashwin Hemmathagama
– Our Lobby Correspondent
Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake yesterday successfully dodged a second attempt to oust him from office when the Government defeated a motion of No Confidence moved by the pro-Rajapaksa Joint Opposition, by a whopping 94 member majority in a vote that ultimately served as a show of strength for the 10-month old UNF administration.
Ending the day long debate, 145 lawmakers – only five short of a two thirds majority – voted to defeat the motion against the Finance Minister while 51 MPs voted in favour. Twenty eight MPs including Kurunegala District Legislator and former President Mahinda Rajapaksa were absent during the crucial debate on the no faith motion. President Maithripala Sirisena arrived in Parliament last afternoon to observe the debate about his Finance Minister, a move seen as an attempt to ensure the majority of his SLFP MPs would vote against the motion.
The no faith motion against Finance Minister Karunanayake was submitted on 27 November 2015. It was to be debated on 8 Wednesday but the debate and vote were postponed by a day due to a technical problem with the audio in the Parliamentary chamber.
Moving the motion Joint Opposition MP Dinesh Gunawardena held that the Minister of Finance had misled the Parliament and the general public through misrepresentation. Gunewardane, who is the Chief Convener of the ‘joint opposition’ said the Finance Minister had fabricated a budget and accused Karunanayake of following “an arbitrary, inflexible and capricious public finance management policy causing seriously damaging impact on the macro economic variables of the country.”
“The Finance Minister’s action is leading the country to bankruptcy. We seek his removal from post to save the country,” Gunewardane told the House.
Gunewardane said the Sri Lankan rupee was getting devalued at an uncontrollable rate. “We would challenge him to table the IMF conditions in Parliament. The increased VAT provides room for the underworld and the crooks to do business and trade. Almost 5000 small businesses are closed. With him printing of money, inflation has increased. The cash flow is negative and the country is going towards a crisis,” said MP Gunawardena proposing that the Finance Minister tender his resignation.
According to the Joint Opposition, as a result of Minister Karunanayake’s action, an import inflationary pressure was built depreciating the Sri Lankan rupee leading to overheating the economy and to severe depletion of the official foreign reserves. They also held him responsible for dragging Sri Lanka into a vulnerable situation in relation to the debt repayment capacity of the country with the B+ negative outlook rating of Sri Lanka in the sovereign credit rating.
UPFA MP Bandula Gunawardane seconded the motion.
MP Sajith Premadasa told the joint opposition that it was trying to sabotage President Sirisena by moving the no confidence motion against his Finance Minister. “President Sirisena is a small person who started at the lowest level as a Grama Sevaka and moved to the top most position in the country. I know you are reluctant to address him Sir and give due respect,” Premadasa charged.
Minister of City Planning and Water Supply Rauff Hakeem also praised Minister Karunanayake for gradually developing the economy, which was almost negative as a result of bad management by the Rajapaksa regime.
“Generally, the oppositions select a giant in a government to topple it. So, Minister Karunanayake should not take this vote of no-confidence a threat but a flop. Karunanayake and myself, we both came in 1994 to this Parliament. The Joint Opposition is trying to attack the economy of this country via Ravi Karunanayake and the government,” Hakeem said.
The SLMC Leader added that the UPFA took over Government in 2005 and ever since then incomes had depreciated as a significant percentage of the GDP. “In 2005, the Government income was 20% of the GDP. This went down to 12% in 2012 – 2013. But Ravi Karunanayake managed to runback the downward trend and increase income,” he said.
Minister of Special Assignments and former Deputy Minister of Finance, Dr. Sarath Amunugama charged MP Bandula Gunawardane for his erroneous calculations and controversial statements issued during the Rajapaksa regime.
“This no-confidence motion is unclear and this is the worst we saw. The pervious motions had strong points supported by data and statistics. This is nothing more than you expressing some view point,” Amunugama said.
He said UPFA MP Bandula Gunawardane who was a key supporter of this motion was nothing more than a part of the Mahinda Rajapaksa Government who said a family could live with Rs.2,500 for a month.
“I must say one thing good about former President Mahinda Rajapakse, he never involved you for economic matters. Whatever you teach in tuition classes and found in theory books differ in reality. I never consider you as an economist but a good tuition teacher,” Amunugama quipped.
Chief Opposition Whip JVP MP Anura Dissanayake disagreed that Minister Karunanayake had contributed to improve the economy. “The first point in this motion is that the Budget is a bluff. But I must tell you all budgets are bluffs. Many examples can be highlighted from the history. But issue was that there was no final budget. What got presented to the Parliament was changed many a times. As a result of these changes we are yet to know the actual income of the Government. We are nation yet to know the total foreign debt,” the JVP Leader charged.
Deputy Minister of Public Enterprise Development Eran Wickramaratne joining the debate said the Government had created space for the opposition to take action against anybody in the administration.
Joint Opposition MP Mahindananda Aluthgamage bringing a series of allegations, which were not found in the motion said: “This is not a motion brought against the President but the Finance Minister. We know we will win this. I have seen many no-confidence motions brought to this house. The last which was the motion against Dr. Shirani Bandaranayake. Bringing a no-confidence we show that we don’t trust you as the Finance Minister and you are not suitable to hold this position.”
Aluthgamage said Minister Karunanayake was in business that had dealings with the Customs Department and charged that the Finance Ministry was corrupt. “For the first time the Central Bank was taken away along with five other establishments from you. This shows your own Government lacks confidence in you. None of the previous finance ministers brought amendments to support their own businesses. You have five advisors in your Ministry. Naukik who is in charge of the Customs is biggest dealer. After you became the Minister 1,500 containers of arecanut brought to Sri Lanka. It is prohibited to bring arecanuts to Sri Lanka. You are now looking at purchasing four scanners to Customs. These are low quality machines and Custom Officers are against bringing them,” the UPFA MP and strong Rajapaksa backer asserted.
However, Ven. Athuraliye Rathana thero taking a positive note of the vote of no-confidence motion suggested both the Joint Opposition and the Government create an open discussion on matters highlighted during the debate.
“This is not a Government of the SLFP or the UNP. This is a national government. We need to see how best we should take it forward. I see the Finance Minister as a person to execute the duty. I agree that we don’t have national policy on imports and exports. Vehicle imports faced lot of criticism. We need to open a debate on the government’s import policy,” Rathana Thero said.
He said the Government should take the charges being brought against them into consideration but he warned the joint opposition that it would not be able to defeat the current Government. “The leaders of the two main parties of this country have joined hands to form this Government. But we should open a discussion to develop the nation and adjust productively by bringing in national policies. Our discussion should be on how best we should reduce taxes and obtain loans,” said Rathana thero.
