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Something for everybody to ensure everything for somebody
View(s):President Mahinda Rajapaksa presented an incentives-filled Budget on Friday, targeting middle and lower income groups with an eye on Presidential election in early January.
Many commentators and analysts said that the plethora of offers including a wage hike for public and private sector workers, pensions for migrant and garment workers, creation of 50,000 new jobs and incentives for teachers and policemen were intended to win back support, the ruling party lost at a recent Provincial poll.
Anton Marcus, General Secretary of a union representing FTZ workers, said that many Budget concessions were given because of the Uva results where the ruling party vote base dropped by 21 per cent.
There was also clarity sought from the public on the increase in public sector wages. According to Mr Marcus, the minimum salary of a public sector employee of Rs 11,630 has been increased to Rs 15,000, while the cost of living allowance of Rs 7,800 has been increased to Rs 10,000.Highly-placed government sources said there were last-minute changes to the Budget, to feed in more and more concessions that even surprised senior Finance Ministry officials who were involved in the Budget proposals up to around Wednesday.
Some proposals were a repeat from the past- migrant worker pensions and the allocation for renovation of Lionel Wendt and Lumbini theatres.
The sources said Treasury Secretary Dr P.B. Jayasundera didn’t return to his office (after the Budget presentation) as he normally did after previous Budgets, to discuss with Ministry officials. He also didn’t turn up at the regular Tax Department-organised post-Budget discussion, though scheduled as the keynote speaker. It was not clear why he abstained from these meetings.
Earlier, both the President and the Treasury Secretary denied reports, particularly in the Business Times, that the Budget would be targeting elections.
Poultry Producers Forum co-coordinator Yakooth Naleem, who is also Bairaha Group Managing Director, said that proposals to promote the poultry industry, specially exports, was a welcome sign, but it was not clear on concessions granted to the sector.
Fixing a guaranteed price for maize was a long felt need, as poultry farmers and their families, and over three million employees depend on the industry, where price of maize was an essential factor.
President of the National Trade Union Centre K.D. Lal Kantha said in a media statement that the demands of the working people have been completely ignored in the Budget, despite misleading public sector employees and the masses that a massive salary hike of Rs 15,000 was given to workers, increasing the minimum salary to Rs 25,000,
Referring to concessions given to University academics and undergraduates, Head of the Mass Communication Faculty of Kelaniya University, Prof Rohana Laxman Piyadasa, pointed out that needy undergraduates will breathe a sigh of relief, with the government’s decision to increase the Mahapola scholarship bursary to Rs 4,000 from Rs 2,500, although it was not sufficient to meet their expenses due to the high cost of living.
He noted that the President’s intention was to increase it to Rs 5,000, but there had been objections from top Treasury officials.
While private motorcar dealers said vehicle prices would rise, senior government officials rejected the claim, saying customs duty on motorcars had been slashed by around 20 to 25 per cent by the special tax on all vehicle imports
Customs duty on motorcars would decrease by around 20 to 25 per cent and on vans by around 25 to 65 percent, through the Budget proposals, said Dr B.M.S. Batagoda, Deputy Secretary to the Finance Ministry.
These proposals would be effective from midnight Sunday, and that prices of motorcars and vans would come down.
He said this is not a stand-alone Budget but, combined with the nine previous Budgets, and is part of a larger plan to move Sri Lanka towards a knowledge economy, to become a developed country by 2035.
He said that this Budget was the beginning of the third phase of this plan, which would focus on human resource development. This could be differentiated from prior phases, the first of which had targeted peace and security and minimal infrastructure for the people as its main priority (2005-2010), while the second was more focused on infrastructure and livelihood growth (2010-2015).
Elaborating, he also remarked that the 2015 national Budget was setting the foundation for Sri Lanka’s emerging knowledge economy, by providing for human resource development, skill education and health and education as “more key directions” in this Budgetary proposal. Additionally, he also said that, while devoting almost the entire Budget for human resource development, there were also proposals to identify the remaining facets of poverty, following the concept of inclusive development, encompassing every single cross section of the population in this country.
The Business community expressed the view that the Budget had addressed all sections of the public, and the tax proposals were good for growth.
Senior Deputy President of the National Chamber of Commerce, Tilak Godamanna said this is a development-oriented Budget with a focus on export growth. “I think this is a result of the last few years of the achievements of the whole nation,” he said. He said concessions have been given to all sectors of the economy.