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| Thursday, 18 November 2004 |
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UPFA presents maiden Budget today: Major funds to develop rural economy by Channa Kasturisinghe The United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) will present its maiden budget in Parliament today. For the last several weeks Finance Minister Dr. Sarath Amunugama and treasury officials have been engaged with the daunting task of preparing a people friendly budget in an environment where the global economy is in turmoil due to sky rocketing oil and petroleum product prices. The challenge is to present a budget with proposals to relieve the people of the burden of the rising cost-of-living in the short term and with measures to develop the economy in the long run. According to Treasury Secretary Dr. P.B. Jayasundera this year's budget will focus mainly on developing the rural economy giving special emphasis on the small and medium scale industrial sector. The Government has allocated a major share of the donor funds on public investment in its maiden budget to develop rural infrastructure to support the SMEs. He said the Budget deficit would be maintained at 8 percent. "As this year's budget is long term and development oriented, other sectors such as health, education, housing and small energy projects have been put on focus while the National Poverty Alleviation and Growth Program was continuing to pass on the benefits to the masses. Public servants salaries would be increased in a form of value addition (incentives) to recognise their commitment, productivity and efficiency." Dr. Jayasundera told the media recently. He said that the Tissa Devendra Permanent Salary Commission looks into all anomalies in various cadres to redress the present public servants' salary grievances while the Lalith Weeratunga Committee works on overall improvement strategies of the public sector. Unlike the previous budgets since independence before preparing the 2005 budget proposals the views of the public were taken into serious consideration. He said there had been over five-hundred proposals forwarded by individuals, professionals, chambers of commerce and associations covering sectors including export, manufacturing and construction, small and medium enterprises and apparel. Dr. Jayasundera said that there was immense enthusiasm from the public towards the treasury's invitation to public views and opinions and the budget committee has evaluated and considered every suggestion and incorporated the best of them for short and long term implementation. |
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