Ten Rupee Budget record in Parliament in 1986

Edward ARAMBEWALA

With the Government presenting the Budget for the rest of the year 2010 in Parliament on June 29 and the Opposition shouting at the Government making all kinds of allegations, I thought it fit to refer to this incident in Parliament that happened on the last day of the 1978 Budget debate. When Ronnie de Mel was the Finance Minister not so much because as a journalist I was connected with it. But to show in my opinion that he (the Minister) failed on that occasion to initiate a new Parliamentary tradition in Budgets, starting from Sri Lanka in making something like a hat collection in Parliament that day getting a voluntary contribution from those present to bring down the Budget deficit even in a very small way.

Minister de Mel, who praised so much of my voluntary contribution of the Rs 10 cheque, as you will see from his speech in the day's Hanzard re-produced here, he could have made the first Parliamentary contribution himself.

I believe, if this had been done, Sri Lanka could have set a new traditional Budget record, which Parliaments in other countries may have followed.

Here is what the Hanzard says:-

"I rarely table letters. But today I thought I will table a letter which is one of several that I have received. As I was going out this morning for lunch I got a letter which had been addressed to me in this House. It is a very strange letter with a cheque also, a cheque for Rs 10 (Interruption). This is not a capitalist that is writing to me. He is not a person I know, I have never met him. I have not even heard his name. His name is Edward Arambewela. His address is B2/1/10, De Soysa Flats, Moratuwa. This letter is dated 19.11.1986. It has attachment of Rs 10 cheque. Addressed "Minister of Finance, Rupees ten only". This is what he says "to Mr. Ronnie de Mel, Hon. Minister of Finance and Planning, Parliament, Sri Jayewardenepura, Kotte. Honourable Sir, "The heading is, "Tenth Budget and my token, voluntary contribution of Rs 10 towards meeting the unbridged budget deficit."

"It is a very strange, sincere, nice letter. Of course, he has made a very big mistake about the Budget deficit. He says, "towards meeting the unbridged Budget deficit of Rs 12.2 billion." Now, my unbridged deficit is only Rs 3.5 billion in the end. The letter goes on as follows:

"It would be a pleasant surprise to you to get this letter from an ordinary citizen of this country on the last day of the Second Reading of your Tenth Budget. I say a 'pleasant surprise' because you would never have expected that at least one ordinary citizen of this country would come forward on his own and offer a token contribution of even Rs 10 towards meeting your unbridged Budget deficit. Now let me explain to you why I have decided to do so. There is no secrecy about the fact that you have presented your Tenth Budget at a very crucial time in the history of this country."

Now, he is a gentleman who understand the situation.

"When mounting defence expenditure owing to the separatist problem was draining the economy to the utmost everyone would have expected a hard hitting Budget so to say at this time but counter to popular thinking, you have presented a Budget taxing the ordinary man to the minimum. There has been no price change in many of the essential commodities. It is fact that in the last time budgets you have done your very best for the people and the country. If not for the separatist problem today our economy would have grown to such an extent that unemployment would have become practically nil." This is exactly what the Prime Minister said a few hours back. He goes on to say:

"and the people's confidence in the Government would have been so entrenched that other political parties would have got simply wiped off from the scene. It is to your credit, Sir, that even today under these difficult conditions, our economy has withstood the onslaughts of violence and destruction by the terrorists.

"They have not experienced any shortages of essential commodities or any shortages at all prices have remained fairly steady and development activities continue to progress. This, in itself, is ample evidence of the ability of the Government to develop the country through the sound economic policies it has been following.

"Most of our people compare the situation today with the pre-1977 era when shortages and queues were the order of the day. I know that people are willing to bear the burden of the Budget deficit as much as they could through voluntary contributions as I have done because they do not want the economy to collapse and the queue system and shortages to reappear and the country to go to rack and ruin. What the world and our country needs today is new thinking to overcome the various economic and social problems that we are facing.

"As President Jayewardene said at the Second SAARC Summit in Bangalore 'With love we can conquer everything.' So, it is with love, love of my country and love of its people who are my brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, that I send this small contribution to you, one of 15 million people, to meet the Budget deficit. If all our 15 million people contribute something unitedly to you as I have done, it would not become a tidy sum to you but the unity thus displayed would be worth a million times more and the world itself would take notice of our action and is bound to help us to overcome our problems.

"I do not think you should make side comments about a person like this. He is a patriotic citizen of this country. There are hundreds, thousands and millions like him in this country."