Joint opposition wants Budget scrapped on trade union protests

By Chamodi Guanwardana

Rejecting several Budget proposals, the Joint Opposition yesterday demanded that the National Government withdraw the Budget proposals and insisted it reduced worker rights along the lines of a “counterrevolution”.

Criticising the Budget proposals, MP and New Left Front (NLF) Leader Vasudeva Nanayakkara charged the Government must withdraw the Budget due to the large resistance raised from trade unions. 

“The Government stressed this Budget would be a third generation economic reform and a revolution. We believe it was a big betrayal of the country’s economy to foreign organisations,” he alleged. 

Nanayakkara also charged that Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had insulted trade unions including the Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA), which revealed the Government’s secret economic agendas to the public. 

The GMOA on Monday revealed a group of International Trade Ministry officials would visit India on 21 December to take a final decision about the signing of the Economic and Technology Cooperative Agreement (ETCA) which they claimed would adversely affect professionals employed in Sri Lanka.  

“Wickremesinghe has stated the GMOA’s revelation was false and they do not have such kind of plan. However, he insulted the GMOA in public without conducting a meeting to sort out opposing views. We think this situation is detrimental to all trade unions,” Nanayakkara insisted. 

He added this Budget was an unacceptable one, because it was attempting to abolish rights and benefits given by prior Governments to employees.