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| Saturday, 13 November 2004 |
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| UPFA Government's maiden Budget: Focus on rural masses by Uditha Kumarasinghe Finance Minister Dr. Sarath Amunugama yesterday stressed that the forthcoming maiden budget of the United People's Freedom Alliance Government will be a people friendly budget and also that the benefits of the budget will see a shift to the rural areas. "There must be a greater vigilance and greater compliance to ensure this," the Minister said. Minister Amunugama was speaking to journalists after a discussion with the Organisation of Deputy Ministers on the forthcoming budget at the Finance Ministry yesterday. The Minister said the Government has already fulfilled a number of pledges given to the people when it was in the Opposition. The maiden budget of the UPFA Government intends to further fulfil these pledges. "The country is in an economically difficult situation. Oil prices in the world market are increasing daily. This directly affects the economy of a country like Sri Lanka which does not produce oil. Yet amidst these severe hardships, the Government hopes to give all possible relief measures to the people particularly to the rural masses as promised," he said. Dr. Amunugama said a key matter discussed at the meeting with the Deputy Ministers was that whatever benefits given to the public in various budgets, it was vitally necessary to follow up and implement the intention of Parliament which finally passes the budget as well as the intention of the Government which presents the budget and implements it fully. "This will be particularly true at the forthcoming budget," the Minister stressed. The Minister said the presentation of the budget is just only a initial step by the Government. The second and most important step is to implement budget proposals. However, this cannot be done only by the Finance Minister or the Cabinet. The commitment of Deputy Ministers, Parliamentarians and all relevant sections are needed to implement these proposals. The Minister said he had a very important and useful discussion with the Organisation of Deputy Ministers. "I must personally thank them for being with us today and raising very important questions pertaining to the forthcoming budget." The Minister said that he was very grateful to the Organisation of Deputy Ministers who had a frank and forthright discussion with him and expressed their views and suggestions for the budget. The discussion was very useful and will be continued with in the future. Therefore a decision was taken that the organisation should meet the Finance Minister once a month with a view to implementing of budget proposals, Dr. Amunugama said. He said: "The Deputy Ministers Organisation is a tremendous resource for the President and for the Government. We are a free and transparent Government. We also appreciate the role of the media. The media has been supporting the Deputy Ministers since they formed this organisation. "Asking questions on budgetary matters at this press briefing is not fair. After the budget we will have a full scale press conference where the opportunity will be provided to the media to ask any question," the Minister said. Convenor of the Organisation of Deputy Ministers, Ports and Aviation Deputy Minister Dilan Perera said the discussion was very frank and useful. "We were able to clear all doubts in several grey areas." He said the discussion focused on many key areas such as the state sector, private sector, agriculture and education. Valuable information was gathered and many proposals were put forward. Some of them were accepted. "We are not only thinking in terms of submitting proposals to the budget but also in getting involved in the follow up. Sometimes we make proposals and suggestions, but in most instances those proposals and relief do not go to the masses. We thought of getting actively involved in helping the Government and the Finance Minister to let them know what the people want from the budget and in order to bring the harvest of the budget proposals to the people," he said. |
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