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| Wednesday, 24 March 2004 |
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Politics | |
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| More peace, more development - GL The country's development program will be quickly brought back into action the moment a UNF Government is re-elected, said Cabinet spokesman Prof. G. L. Peiris, according to a UNP press release yesterday. "Since last November, many development programmes have slowed down because of the uncertainty caused by the President's actions," he said. "However, after the election we shall be able to re-start those programs very quickly since many were in the late development stages. Naturally, with a re-start to the peace negotiations, the economy will start growing rapidly once more and that will release more money for development programs as well as paying off the massive debt left by the PA Government," Peiris said. "We should also be able to ensure that the rural electrification program as well as the rural roads program get further funding. It is one of the unknown facts that so many more people were getting additional services under the UNF Government. The number of households with electrical power connections grew by 316,000 and under the current program the number of people benefiting will go up by 1,625,000. Meanwhile an extra 123,000 households have been provided with water connections, a further 806,000 telephones have been installed and even a boom in e-mail connections by nearly 30,000 has occurred," he said. "The Prime Minister made it clear that year one was clearing the fallow land, year two was sowing the seed and only in year three would we start the harvesting. The figures I have just quoted were the early modest successes, we fully expect much greater growth in the next four to six years with a UNF Government," Peiris said. "Unfortunately the JVP/SLFP Alliance makes very little reference to development issues in their manifesto so presumably these programs will not be on their priority list. However a UNF Government will very quickly re-establish the programs disrupted last November and people will see some quick benefits," he said. |
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