None of the soldier families got Rs.100,000:JVP

24 November 2011 01:19 am Views - 6101

The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) charged yesterday that though the government pledged in its 2011 budget to give Rs.100,000 to soldiers at the birth of their third child, none of the soldiers had received this payment during the year.

JVP front-liner Vijitha Herath said that in Monday’s Budget too, the government had promised to extend this facility to families of police officers as well, but when considering the government’s track record this too would end up as an empty promise.

He said the government had pledged to allocate Rs.1,200 million in the 2011 budget to make such payments to soldier families.

“If Rs.100,000 was given to each soldier family, 12,000 families would have received this payment. But we know of no soldier family being benefited from such an offer. This is another act of budgetary deception. President Mahinda Rajapaksa promised to extend this facility to police officers next year but this too is merely rhetoric and eye-wash,” Mr. Herath said.

He said the President had contradicted himself when presenting poverty-related figures and added that in the 2011 budget speech the President announced that the poverty level had dropped to 7.6 per cent from 15 per cent but in his 2012 Budget speech the President announced that the poverty level remained at 8.9 per cent.

“The Budget speech appears to have been prepared without referring to the previous speech. That is the reason for such a mistake. If the figure mentioned in Monday’s speech is correct, then we can assume that poverty levels have increased,” Mr. Herath said.

JVP MP Sunil Handunnetti said though the President had announced that food prices dropped in 2011 due to the Divineguma Programme, but the reports tabled in parliament by the Finance Ministry indicated that food prices had increased not decreased.

“We do not know what to believe,” he said. (Kelum Bandara)