"Mahinda Chintana -rob rich and give poor"

(July 08, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) UNP M.P. Kabir Hashim addressing a Press briefing at the UNP media center today (8Jul) , said, during the war ,the Govt. blamed the war expenditure to exact taxes and heap burdens on the people . But, now even after the war is over, what the people witness and experience day by day are continued hardships and sufferings.

Instead of providing relief to the people , the Govt. is only obsessed with increasing its already over bloated Cabinet of Ministers by giving portfolios to its sycophants, who in the view of the public are self serving politicians and betrayers worthy only of being driven out of the political arena ; and increasing the prices of essential goods and fuel prices . On the health side too, people are dying and suffering owing to the rapid multiplication of diseases due to the poor health services provided by the Health Ministry .

Robbing people and paying the loss incurring corrupt and wasteful Govt. Institutions, in order to run them at any cost to the taxpayers is the only policy this Govt. knows and faithfully follows , he added. Even today the Govt. is seeking to pass supplementary estimates in Parliament amounting to Rs. 11000 million to meet extra expenditures of five Ministries over and above the budget allocations. Out of this ,the Govt. is seeking to set a aside Rs. 8000 million as export rebate to Export Companies in order to revive the Export sector which has crashed to rock bottom due to the Govt.’s own lopsided policies and bungles. This Export decline was foreseen well ahead by all including the Govt. and its financial wizards of the Central Bank more than a year ago, but despite the Opposition party , UNP’s warnings to it to take counter measures , the Govt. neglected the warnings resulting in huge losses to the country .This attitude of the Govt. is true of all other sectors too, whereby even the other Ministries are incurring losses. The vital question is who will have to meet these expenditures resulting from this Govt. bungling ? from whom is it going to collect these sums? Obviously , the Govt. has to ruthlessly extort from the people by raising prices of goods, taxes and tariff hikes , he lamented.

In short , the Govt. is unconscionably pick pocketing the people to fill its pocket full of holes. Instead of mending its pockets (the Govt. sector ridden with corrupt , malpractices and inefficiency ) ,it is following the easy and lazy course exploiting and extorting the docile masses while justifying its actions by specious arguments and diabolic sophistry misleading the voters who elected it to power . It is no wonder that it has to ruthlessly sell petrol at Rs, 130/- per liter when it can be sold at Rs.55.00 making a profit of 232 %. Even on food items it is levying huge taxes –on potato , Rs. 25.00 per kilo ; on sprats , Rs. 35.00 per kilo ; Rs. 20.00 per kilo on Rice. From mobile phone users, a great majority of whom are of the poorer class, it exacts a tax of Rs. 11.92 on every Rs. 50.00 worth of calls . All these taxes are necessary because the Govt. has to cover its extravagant Cabinet expenditures and recoup the losses of the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation – Rs. 4000 million; the CTB- Rs. 4000 million annually ; the CEB – Rs. 50 million per day . In addition , there are also many other white elephant Institutions of the Govt. .All these losses boil down to prove one truth that this Govt. has no proper fiscal planning or policy , he observed.

-Sri Lanka Guardian