State Finance Minister Slams NPP’s Unrealistic Manifesto for Sri Lanka

News Today: State Finance Minister Criticizes NPP Election Manifesto as Unrealistic

State Finance Minister Shehan Semasinghe said that the manifesto of the National People’s Power (NPP) has revealed a path to a poor country and a harsh life. He said this while attending the ‘Puluwan Sri Lanka’ media conference held in Colombo yesterday. “The people are waiting for the political parties to unveil their visions that will take the country forward. But, the NPP’s manifesto which was launched today is just a bag of wishes and is not a reality.

“Although they said that they are implementing various reform programmes, this is not true. I have checked if there is anything that President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s government has not implemented.But there is nothing new in it. I don’t know why the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna has to copy what others are doing as its own,” he said.

“This reform programme has repeated all the things we are currently doing. Every country in the world hopes for an economically strong environment in which to live a good life. Now this group that destroyed this country completely economically is now talking about building a good life and a beautiful country. It is hilarious.Since 1971, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna did not give any chance for the people to become rich and to transform into a country with a good economy. They contributed to creating a collapsed economy in the country. After the complete collapse of the economy in 2022, under the leadership of President Ranil Wickremesinghe, we started the reform programme with the International Monetary Fund and entered into a conditional acceptance programme with creditors.

They tried their best to destroy the economy and contributed to creating a difficult period for the people during the era of 1971 and ’88–’89, as well as the low period of 2022. They tried to set the Parliament on fire and tried to push those difficulties forward. When that was not possible, three of their representatives in the Parliament tried to defeat this reform programme. But today they have accepted that the President’s policy and the programme followed by our government is right.They propose to increase the income tax exemption limit. Through this, they are trying to reduce the country’s tax revenue and make the country go back to the crisis that occurred in 2022. If there is a tax cut, the government will lose an income of at least Rs. 65 billion. But, alternative ways to recover this income are not mentioned in the manifesto. In this country, the tax policy and the government revenue policy should go together.

The country’s economy shrank by 7.8 percent by 2020. It took six quarters for the shrunken economy to expand again. It took six quarters to transform the negative economy into a positive economy with the support of the International Monetary Fund and the countries that gave us financial support. I doubt whether they again suggest to lead a rich economy into a negative economy? That’s why we said this is just a bag of wishes. They think that the problems of this country and the problems of the people will be solved by using beautiful words. Here is a list of words used to deceive people. This is an empty programme and a vocabulary that deceives the people.

All these circumstances will ultimately affect the cash flow of the country, and if that happens, the state cannot pay salaries to its employees. Fertiliser subsidy cannot be given to the farmer. It is not possible to give allowances to the disabled, the elderly and kidney patients. Education cannot be maintained. It is not possible to maintain the health sector. This will ultimately lead the Treasury to bankruptcy. The move is to completely destabilise the cash flow and bring it back to the status quo in 2022.

These people said that they are going to review the programme of the International Monetary Fund. They said that new proposals will be presented and cost management will be carried out. What does this mean? How can they be discussed with the IMF without a proper programme? It is a question whether the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna and Samagi Jana Balawega even know a basis for such a discussion,”he concluded.