Rs. 5,750m budget for all institutions under President

Nadira Gunatilleke and Rajmi Manatunga

The Rs. 5,750 million allocated from this year’s budget for the President includes funds to be provided to all State institutions coming under the President’s purview, Construction and Engineering Services Minister Rajitha Senaratne said.

Addressing the weekly situation briefing at the Government Information Department yesterday, the Minister said that the allocation was not meant purely for the personal expenses of the President and his staff as suggested by certain Opposition political parties.

“A large proportion of this Rs. 5,750 million includes financial allocations for 13 State institutions coming under the President and the Presidential Secretariat for the year 2008,” he said adding that the controversy which followed the presentation of the Appropriation Bill was a mere political ploy.

Responding to certain statements made regarding the size of the present Cabinet and the amount of funds spent on maintaining it, Senaratne said countries like Japan and Singapore make much larger financial allocations than Sri Lanka for their Members of Parliament which sometimes exceeds Rs. nine billion.