(COLOMBO, LANKAPUVATH) –Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa told Parliament yesterday that the Central Bank and the Attorney General should take necessary action with regard to the Treasury Bond scam and the forensic audit.
He said that a Presidential Commission has been appointed to investigate the arbitrary sale of ETI Company without settling the monies of the investors and to take required action. It is the government’s responsibility to ensure that justice is done to the investors.
“During the past five years the number of unemployed graduates have risen sharply and they have been protesting only to be tear gassed and oppressed by the then government through court orders. However, our government intends to call for applications from them to provide them employment,” the Prime Minister said.
Prime Minister Rajapaksa pointed out that as promised by the previous government, the budget deficit has not dropped to 4% of the national income. “It is at around 7%. At the time I handed over the government in 2015, the budget deficit was only 5%. But, after five years the government debts are at around 80%.
“The previous government has handed over an economy burdened by high taxes and interest rates. President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has accepted this challenge.
Our government is bound to fulfil the pledge we made in our election manifesto to reduce the budget deficit to less than 4% and state debt to less than 70%,” he said.
