AJITH SIRIWARDANA 
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Let’s work in harmony: MR tells TNA
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President Mahinda Rajapaksa, in his concluding speech of the budget debate, yesterday appealed Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leader R. Sampanthan and his party’s Northern Provincial Council Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran to co-operate with the government to evolve homegrown solutions to bring about national reconciliation, peace and development in the country.
The President wound up the budget debate that lasted from November 21, by delivering a prepared speech for one hour to a well-attended Parliament. In his speech, he countered criticism on the budgetary proposals by the opposition members. However, there was an element of constructive criticism and recognition of his government’s achievements by the opposition this time.
“We commend this. You have to criticize us constructively. Then, we can correct ourselves. UNP MP Dr. Harsha de Silva recognized the government’s ability to reduce the budget deficit to 5.8 percent this time from 9.9 percent. We target it to be reduced further to 5.2 percent next year and to 3.8 in 2016,” he said.
Like in his last year’s budget speech, he drew examples from the folklore woven around a villager who took a sack of tamarind to a vendor.
“In this story, the vendor concerned weighed the amount of tamarind and deducted payments for husks, seeds and the sack that contained it. Then, there was none left. The disappointed villager asked the vendor whether this meant there was no tamarind in the sack. The opposition’s criticism cannot be compared to this story this time. They have admitted that there is some tamarind in the sack,” he told the House amid ripples of laughter.
The President tried to counter criticisms mainly by UNP MPs such as Sujeewa Senasinghe, Ajith P. Perera and Sajith Premadasa in their respective speeches during the course of the debate. He said state institutions were considered unsuccessful business ventures both by successive governments between 1977 and 2005.
“State institutions were privatized at a rate. Late leaders J.R. Jayewardene and R. Premadasa built the opinion that governments should do away with them. The same policy was followed by former President Chandrika Kumaratunga and opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe. Yet, we deviated from it,” he said.
Referring to the mega water project aimed at supplying drinking water from the Iranamadu Tank to Kilinochchi and Jaffna, he urged TNA MP S. Sritharan who is from that area, to assist the government to address problems cropped up in the implementation of this project.
He outlined the government’s development projects such as road projects, port projects and the airport project.
“I kindly request the UNP not to think of privatizing the Hambantota port and the airport at any cost, “he said.(KB & YP)
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