There Are No Concessions For People – Bimal Ratnayake

By Camelia Nathaniel and Ashanthi Warunasuriya

Following are excerpts of the interview:

Q. On the whole how do you perceive the budget 2016?

A. We don’t see this budget as holding any promise to the country either short term, or long term. The people expected a lot more from this budget. In fact they expected the promised pay hikes to be implemented immediately but this has not happened satisfactorily through this budget. When taking into account the government’s decision to give the money to the parents instead of giving them the uniform material, this will easily pave the way for these monies to be utilised for other purposes instead of the intended purpose. Further if the price of materials goes up, then the result will be that these parents would not be able to purchase the uniform materials. This method as a whole leaves room for a lot of issues to arise.

Similarly the fertiliser subsidy is the same and will only leave room for fraud and malpractices as the farmers may now either resort to using inferior fertilisers in order to save money.

Taking into consideration the increase in emission testing charges, invariably this will bounce back on the parents, as the van owners will now increase the van charges claiming that their expenses have increased, as even the registration fees have been increased.

Even the pensioners have not gained and some have even seen their allowances being taken off. So they have not gained either. In fact they have only broadened the new liberal economy. We have seen this government adopting the same policies that had led to the economic downfall of many nations in the past.

 

Q. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had proposed a midterm economic plan for the country in a comment recently. How do you see this proposal and the budget?

A. We see that the ideals of the Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, being converted into practice through this budget. It is through this vision that the plans to privatise have also come about. This vision has also been instrumental in trying to let foreign Parties to own lands here etc. On a positive note currently the indirect taxes are at 81% of the state income and the direct taxation is at 19%. But according to the midterm plan, it is proposed to reduce the indirect taxes to 40% and increase the direct taxes to 60%. In other words to collect more taxes from those who have and lesser from those who do not have. However although the Premier’s plan suggested the above, in the budget what happened was that they had increased the indirect taxes to 85% and the direct taxes to 15%. This is a clear indication that while Ranil promised the people one thing, he has hit at the people’s pocket through the budget.

The premier also promised a gender based allocation, but in the budget there is nothing for the females. The government has identified that the highest unemployment rate is among the educated females. But there is no proposal in the budget to address that issue. There is no mention of the 20,000 that was proposed for pregnant mothers either. Hence we see that although much was promised by the premier, they have focused more on what they can take from the people rather than what can be given in this budget.

 

Q. But there has been a reduction in many essential items, isn’t this good?

A. This is good but what we say is that the government will not be able to sustain this for long. What I mean is that it is not practical. In the case of gas prices, yes the government is able to curtail the prices, but when it comes to other essential commodities such as vegetables etc, the government has no control over the situation as the prices are being determined by other market factors. No matter what price restrictions the government imposes, in practical terms it is not possible to maintain it. What the government should have done was to reduce the prices of commodities that are within their control such as gas, electricity, water, transport charges and school fees etc.

 

Q. Do you think that the simplified taxation is a good thing?

A. when we mean simplified taxation, in the view of investment or business, this could be beneficial for investors. But from the ordinary people’s view, the taxation being simplified is not enough it should be concessionary. Now in the case of micro, and small scale businesses, they charge Rs. 25,000 for registering their businesses. But most of them are women who engage in these projects such as sewing, or mushroom cultivation or packeting food items and selling, employing a few people. They spend 25,000 to register their business but the government has allocated only around 500 million for loans while there are around 200,000 of them around the country. So basically each of these businesses can only get around 10,000 as loans. So these micro and small scale businesses don’t need simplified taxations but what they need is concessions.

 

Q. It is believed that this budget is an investor friendly budget. Do you believe that this will encourage investors to come here to invest?

A. It is very good to maintain good ties with all countries and to engage in trade with all these countries. However what we see is that the formulas that are being used to attract foreign investors is what has been tried and tested over 40 years and failed. What has been done over the past 40 years is creating better opportunities for foreign investors. No government has ever brought a carpenter in a village and given him all facilities and made him into a great businessman. Similarly, they have not given any opportunities for the farmers either to improve their crops. The government always talks about the North and claim that because of the war there was no investment there, but the fact is that even in places like the Uva province even without a war there are no industries that have been established there over the past 40 years. That is why we say that although there will be some foreign investors this will not make any significant difference in the country’s economy. Hence we say that this is a wrong move and we should instead try to uplift the country’s production. This promise the government is making regarding the country’s economy prospering is false, and I will prove it by next November.

 

Q. The government has allocated the greatest allocation in recent times for education. How do you see this?

A. One of the most foolish moves that Ranil Wickremesinghe government has done is appointing Ravi Karunanayake as the finance minister, and through him they have put a price on buildings made by Kannangara’s time and showed it as a government expense and added it to the education sector. They must understand that those who protested asking for an allocation of 6% for education were not mutts. They were the university lecturers and the university students, and the whole country supported it. Ravi Karunanayake should apologise to the people for the way he has cheated them. Even the Rajapaksa’s made these sort of fraudulent acts, years after they were in power, but Karunanayake is taking the people for fools.

 

Q. The government made a pledge to reduce the cost of vehicles, but this did not happen in this budget. How do you see this?

A. What every consecutive government has done is to scrape every penny from the ordinary people and eventually give it to the 1% who belong to the upper echelons of society. Anyone knows how poor the public transport system is and this is why people even get into debt to own a private vehicle. However public transport cannot be developed in a short period of time and it takes time. The government should only gradually reduce the private vehicles by developing the public transport system. They should develop some sort of public transport like the metro. But instead of that the government is planning on imposing huge hikes on emission testing and taxes without first upgrading the public transport. This will only affect the average person and not the man who has plenty.

 

Q. Is it right to say that the JVP as a party is against the 2016 budget?

A. Yes we are. Six years after the end of the war, the government in this budget has still not allocated anything for the development of businesses in the North for the employment of the youth. They have no vision to create employment opportunities for them.