The Opposition would give priority to pass the No Confidence Motion against Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake, UPFA General Secretary Parliamentarian Susil Premajayantha said today.

Addressing the weekly media briefing at the SLFP head office Mr. Premajayantha said the No Confidence Motion against Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had not been moved in Parliament as yet and therefore, the Opposition wanted to debate and pass the Motion against Mr. Karunanayake as early as possible.

He said that the monetary management of the government was poor and the government had failed in financial discipline.

"The Treasury has no funds even to pay salaries to public servants, let alone the continuation of development projects launched by previous government. The government therefore, has no option but to go for foreign loans on high interest rates. But Mr. Karunanayake displays huge billboards at busy junctions carrying his and President Maithripala Sirisena's pictures to convince the public that the government has achieved much success in the last five months in development which is untrue," Mr. Premajayantha charged.

On the curtailing of the lunch hour of public servants to thirty minutes by the government, Mr. Premajayantha said the action would lead to inefficiency, distress and low productivity in the Public Service and added what required was a total reform package for the Public Service.

"Do not forget that this is the government that suspended recruitment to the Public Service for two years and prune the Public Service by half, when they were in power from 2002 to 2004," Mr. Premajayantha said.

“The government has come to a standstill as it has no business to go forward as the government was formed only for 100 days," he charged.

Mr. Premajayantha said the rupee was steadily spiralling in value and government's promise to create one million jobs was a day dream. It was improper to ask former President Mahinda Rajapaksa to retire by a party that has suffered electoral defeats more than 20 times in the last two decades.

Commenting on the 20th Amendment to the Constitution, Premajayantha found fault with the UNP and said while the UPFA was fully supportive of the electoral reforms, the UNP was scuttling the process in order to hold general elections under the highly criticised PR system.

"We are for the 20th Amendment and we want to conduct the Parliamentary polls under the new electoral system that does away with the Preferential Voting System. We put our full weight behind it and try to pass it in Parliament as quickly as possible," he stressed.

Higher Education Project Minister Sudharshini Fernandopulle said the development -mega, medium or micro level- had ground to a halt as no funds were available.

“The government has failed to release even a rupee out of Rs. 10 million, promised to each lawmaker from the mini-budget,” she said. (Sandun A Jayasekera)

Video by Sanath Desmond