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'Govt. misled people by concealing actual amount for education'
The Joint Opposition yesterday said the government had concealed the actual amount of budget allocation for the education sector in the Budget 2017 and that they had misled the whole nation by doing so.
Addressing a media briefing, its MP Bandula Gunawardana said the government had curtailed the budgetary allocation for the education sector by Rs. 175 billion in the Appropriation Bill 2017 for the first time .
“In the Main Estimates of Budget 2017, it has mentioned that Rs. 10,000 million has been allocated to develop 3,577 primary schools. In the same time, adding a technical note it was added that only Rs. 6,500 million was allocated for 2017 targeting 500 primary schools,” Mr. Gunawardana said.
He said it had also mentioned in the Main Estimates of Budget 2017 that Rs. 15,000 million was allocated to develop 10,000 secondary schools and added that the government had deceived the people by adding a technical note to mention only Rs. 7,170 million was allocated for 2017 targeting 250 secondary schools.
He said the Finance Minister had deceived the Education Minister through this conceal; “A huge amount of funds were allocated to education sector in the budget from its surface. But the government had attached technical notes in order to conceal the actual amount of funds allocated,” he added.
He said when the ‘Yahapalana’ Government was coming to power they had continuously stressed out to the people that they would allocate 6 per cent from the Gross National Product (GNP) to the education sector.
“At present they have failed to keep up their promises. Rs. 800 billion should be allocated to match up with a 6 per cent from the GNP for the education sector according to their claims. There is not even a tax income in Sri Lanka which is compatible to that amount. It is impossible,” he added. (Kalathma Jayawardhane)
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