8 March 2019 10:03 am
While affirming that the budget was not an 'election budget', Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera yesterday said he presented the budget with the confidence that the UNP Government will return to implement the rest of the proposals.
Addressing a news briefing held at the Ministry yesterday, Minister Samaraweera said some people praised the budget proposals but predicted that there is not enough time to implement them. “Some say there is no time to implement the proposals which they say are good. I don't see this as last minute. This is the first budget of the UNP. We will implement as many of the proposals as possible before the election. I presented the budget with the confidence that we will come back to implement these proposals,” he said.
He refuted reports that the government was facing an economic crisis. “There is no economic crisis, but challenges, there are a few. However, there was a crisis following the October 26 political coup. This situation was brought under control by us in January,” Minister Samaraweera said.
He said there were also allegations that this was an ‘election budget’ full of false hope. “This is not an election budget though this is an election year,” he said. (Lahiru Pothmulla)
Video by Buddhi
Pix by Damith Wickramasinghe