Economy
Budget 2013 will usher a new era
The following article is based on the speech by Economic Development
Minister Basil Rajapaksa during the debate on the second reading of the
Budget for the year 2013.
"I have to briefly comment on the budget, its fundamentals and the
analysis some people made of the budget during the debate. During the
2005 Presidential Election campaign, President Mahinda Rajapaksa
introduced a vision for building a new Sri Lanka, based on the Mahinda
Chinthana concept. Instead of discarding this concept after the
election, he made it a set of policies and an economic and social
programme to be implemented during his presidency.
It was the same with Mahinda Chinthana, vision introduced later in
2010. This is a budget aimed at providing every citizen with an
opportunity of benefitting from dividends and thereby improving their
living conditions. It is based on several points in the Mahinda
Chinthana and the Mahinda Chinthana Vision.
All our ancient rulers knew that without ensuring the people's food
security, it was impossible to protect the nation's dignity,
independence and sovereignty. This very reason made our people make sure
our country was self sufficient in food. We have drawn special attention
to food security in view of the current global situation. Equally
important is water. It is very difficult to find another country with a
civilization based on irrigation such as ours.
Environmental protection is essential for protecting water resources
and ensuring clean air. All living beings need these for their survival.
We know that lack of clean air and environmental degradation are among
the major problems that are faced in developing countries. Hence, we
have taken environmental protection as the basis for this budget.
The difference between humans and animals began with the use of
energy. It is from this usage that man moved forward. The entire budget
has focused on energy conservation and reusable energy.
In every budget of the President, steps have been taken to provide
everyone with electricity, water, housing, sanitation, a good education
for the children and health services in accordance with the Mahinda
Chinthana and the Mahinda Chinthana Vision. This budget too is aimed at
achieving these goals.
A main target of the Mahinda Chinthana is the individual and family
for the well-being of which various programmes have been launched and
funds allocated. Especially through the Divi Neguma concept, we hope to
pay attention to all families and individual family members. The budget
has provided relief assistance for this purpose. Whatever the job or
profession of a person is, whatever his weaknesses are and wherever he
resides, measures have been taken under this budget to improve his
living standard.
Every budget of ours had focused on the village. We know that over 80
percent of our people live in villages and plantation areas. The village
is the foundation of our country. Its foundation has been 36,000
villages and 14,026 grama seva divisions. Therefore, we have included
road networks, power, water, irrigation, schools, temples and even
maternity clinics as areas requiring attention under the Gama Neguma
village development programme.
This budget shows facilities provided for the development of small
towns under the Pura Neguma. Allocations of around Rs 1 million had been
made to each of the 14,026 grama seva divisions for the development of
villages into small towns under the Pura Neguma. In addition, a proposal
had been made for the first time under this budget, to provide monetary
assistance to 206 pradeshiya sabhas, which receive an income of less
than Rs.1 million. Funds have also been allocated under the Palath
Neguma for every Provincial Council to focus on development schemes that
meet the specific needs of each PC area. Here, I have to counter the
allegation, a Tamil National Alliance MP has made saying that funds
allocated to the North is less than what had been given to other
provinces. I request him to have a look at page 334 of Volume 3 of the
budget estimate 2013 (draft). In it the first to come under regional
pradeshiya development is the North. The amount allocated under the
Uthuru Wasanthaya is Rs. 8,307 million. Only Rs. 2,285 million has been
allocated to Ruhunu Udanaya for development of the South. Rajarata
Navodaya has got even less - Rs. 1,735 million - for developing the
North Central Province. The next major allocation of Rs. 3,068 million
has been made to Ran Aruna , covering the Western Province. Apart from
this, no other province had been allocated more than Rs. 2000 million.
Palath Neguma will be followed by programmes to uplift the entire
country. It is for this purpose that we are investing on a large scale.
The MP who spoke earlier on the Hambantota Port and the Southern
Expressway, showed the yearly income they generated. If such persons
were there when King Dhatusena built the Kala Wewa, or King
Parakramabahu built the Parakrama Samudra, they would ask the reason for
building it, after calculating the value of the paddy from the first
harvest. Then they will say it would take years to benefit from the
project. If such arguments are raised in those days, we would have
neither the Kala Wewa nor the Parakrama Samudra. These are long term
investments. Please do not be hypocritical. These are investments being
made for the sake of future generations. It is because Kings Dhatusena
and Parakramabahu who built water ways like the Jaya Ganga, that our
country became self-sufficient in food. It is because of constructions
like Sigriya that we can proudly talk about Sri Lanka's history.
We made massive investments to develop our country. The building of
the Hambantota Harbour and the Colombo South Harbour were delayed for
years. Every government including the UNP, attempted to build these.
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Minister
Basil Rajapaksa visiting a agriculture project |
When our harbours were unable to accommodate huge container ships
because of the increasing size of such vessels on world's sea lanes, the
number of ships calling at our harbours will lessen invariably, causing
an increase in shipping costs. When it is possible to transport goods at
a much lesser cost on a container ship that could carry 50,000 tons, we
are compelled to pay more for transporting on small vessels because we
do not have a harbour to accommodate larger ships. Consequently, we are
driven out of the market. Every exporter in this country stresses the
need for a bigger harbour.
When the speed of economic progress increases and every village and
house is supplied with electricity, more power generation is needed. We
had a plan experts had drawn up for generating electricity. That plan
had not been implemented. The Norochcholai coal power plant, Upper
Kotmale hydro electric power plant and the Kerawalapitiya power plant
had all come to a standstill. But since the President took a bold step
and commenced work on these projects, Sri Lanka has become the only
South Asian country that has a 24-hour electricity supply seven days a
week with no power cuts.
You are aware of the conditions of other public services when he took
over the country. Foreign investments had come to zero and tourist
arrivals had completely ceased. The strength of the state sector had
been completely reduced and it was doing only day to day work. No
capital investment had been made in this area when the President took
over the country. Even the people had been deprived of their fundamental
rights to live. I wish to stress here that it was only after he took
over the reins that the country was brought under one flag and the
people's right to live was secured. The rest was achieved thereafter.
If we look at this horizontally, programmes have been worked out in
the budget to develop the individual and the family, village and town
and the country. Increased investments have been made in each of these
areas under this budget. Our first priority is agriculture linked to
food security. This country has achieved great success in the field of
agriculture.
After suppressing the Uva uprising, the British Imperialists realized
that our country being an island, we had ensured food security and
self-sufficiency since ancient times. They saw that the reason for our
pride, sovereignty and self-confidence was our self-sufficiency in food.
So what did they do? They destroyed our village tanks, reservoirs and
irrigation systems and destroyed our self-sufficient economy. As a
result, we were compelled to import rice to feed our people. During
World War II, the people of this country had to eat a very low-quality
rice variety called Bajiri.
Thereafter, our people were made to become addicted to American wheat
flour. After independence, several Heads of State tried to make this
country self-sufficient in rice. The effort began with former Prime
Minister D.S. Senanayake and they continued under leaders such as
S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, Dudley Senanayake and Sirimavo Bandaranaike. But
they failed to achieve the goal.
But President Mahinda Rajapaksa succeeded in reaching the target by
providing the farmers with fertiliser subsidy, cultivating abandoned
paddy lands, repairing big and small irrigation systems and building new
irrigation schemes. All this helped our heroic farmers to make this
country self-sufficient in rice.
The Mahinda Rajapaksa Government succeeded in restoring food security
and self-sufficiency in food for the first time in 100 years, after it
was destroyed by British Imperialists. Also our country is becoming
self-sufficient not only in rice, but also in sorghum. We have achieved
a major victory in sorghum cultivation.
The staple food of people in the North is 'ulundu' over 85 percent of
which used to be imported until two years ago. When we
re-startedcultivating it in the Wanni, there were no seeds for
distribution among farmers.
Therefore we imported the seeds from India and distributed them among
farmers.
I am proud to say that farmers in the Wanni have today succeeded in
producing all the 'ulundu' this country needed. Furthermore, we are
reaching self-sufficiency in many other crops.
The President has posed a challenge to the Agriculture Ministry and
to the farming community to make the country self-sufficient in all food
items it needed.
This budget has guaranteed to provide all the relief and security
required for achieving that goal. We have also made a big investment to
boost the country’s milk industry. After 26 years, we have imported the
highest number of dairy cows and distributed them among the farmers.
The aim is not only to raise the income level of our dairy farmers by
saving the money spent on powdered milk, but also make our people a
healthy nation. I wish to say today that 60 percent of Nestle’s milk is
bought from farmers in the North, bringing them a good income.
Today milk collection centres have been set up not only by Milco, but
also by private companies. Our idea is not to bring the milk from
villages to Colombo and sell them in packet form, but to encourage
people in milk production areas to consume it. In addition to exports,
we have taken steps to improve facilities to store fish for longer
periods and also to produce salmon, which our villagers relish.
This government has been able to make the kitul industry a major
foreign-exchange earner. We have taken measures to boost small and
medium scale industries and develop the sugarcane industry to meet the
requirements of investors and tourists.
The biggest challenge the country faced this year was the drought.
Our farmers suffered incalculable losses due to the drought which also
seriously affected energy generation. The breakdown of the coal power
plant stopped production. American sanctions on Iran reduced the supply
of oil from Iran to our refinery. Despite these and other negative
factors, we were able to manage our economy. This budget has provided
relief to 1.5 million farmers. For government employees, 1.3 million had
been allocated.
There are 500,000 pensioners, 1 million war heroes, 600,000 parents
of war heroes, I million tea, rubber and coconut small holders and 5
million medium and small scale entrepreneurs. In addition to these,
there are around 100,000 artistes, those who lost their jobs in the July
1980 strike, female entrepreneurs and disabled people. Accordingly, the
total number is 10.9 million.
We hope to reduce infant mortality rate to two per thousand. The
number of deaths of mothers had come down from 4.45 per 10,000 to 3.11
per 10,000. We hope to reduce this to 2.3. |