Since the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis, the Government has spent over Rs. 260 billion to provide relief to the people. When the expenditure on support measures relating to the crisis is added to the planned subsidies, it is about half of last year’s Government revenue of Rs. 1,380 billion, said President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in his Address to the Nation on Friday.
Despite the dire situation caused by the pandemic, the Government has never taken action to reduce the salaries or allowances of over 1.4 million public servants, he said. President Rajapaksa said the Government annually allocates budget funds to support the public finance environment. Rs. 560 billion is being spent on this of which Rs. 50 billion is used for the Samurdhi program, Rs. 90 billion for the provision of free medicines, Rs. 40 billion to enhance the welfare of differently-abled soldiers, Rs. 250 billion for pensions, Rs. 35 billion to provide fertiliser subsidies to farmers and the Treasury has allocated Rs.25 million to provide uniforms, textbooks and nutritious meals to schoolchildren. Rs. 70 billion is annually allocated to provide various other relief measures including maintenance of loss-making State institutions. The Government has to bear new expenditure to deal with the coronavirus crisis. Every time the country is shut down due to Covid-19 risks, we spend around Rs. 30 billion in each round to provide an allowance of Rs. 5,000 for daily wage earners who lose their income due to Covid-19, he said.
The President said, “I took special efforts in the recent past to bring down vaccines to Sri Lanka. I personally spoke to the Heads of State in countries such as China and India. I also made requests by letters. I personally wrote letters to the Heads of State of Russia and other countries. We held discussions with vaccine-producing countries through our Foreign Ministry and through Ambassadors and High Commissioners. Our officials coordinated with vaccine manufacturing companies. All these efforts were made because I wanted to vaccinate all the people in our country.”
President Rajapaksa said, “So far, we have received 1,264,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, 3.1 million Sinopharm vaccine doses, and 130,000 doses of the Sputnik V vaccine. Altogether, we have received 4,494,000 doses. At present, the vaccination drive is being carried out successfully in all provinces.
“In July, four million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine and 2.5 million doses of Sinovac are expected to be received. Arrangements have also been made to obtain two million Sputnik V doses. Five million doses of Sinopharm vaccine, 2.5 million doses of Sinovac and two million doses of Sputnik V are expected in August. By getting down three million more Sinopharm vaccine doses in September, we could vaccinate 13 million people by the end of September. We can vaccinate almost everyone over the age of 30 by that time. This is a very satisfactory situation,” he said.
The President said, “Today, we are facing the third wave of Covid-19 as a consequence of people travelling in large groups in an improper manner during the Sinhala and Tamil New Year. A number of different strains of the virus has now entered the country. The high transmissible nature of the new variants has created a dangerous situation more than ever before.
Human resources and other facilities available to the health sector are inadequate to urgently deal with the situation when the virus spreads rapidly and the number of infected people increases alarmingly. Therefore, the Government had to shut down the country again.”
President Rajapaksa in his Address to the Nation said the people elected him as the President in November, 2019 with high expectations for the future of the country and added he is committed to fulfilling those expectations, regardless of the seriousness of the obstacles. The President said similar to how they took on the responsibility to end the battle against LTTE terrorism which was considered an impossible task, he is committed to liberate the country from the difficulties it faces and bring prosperity to the people.
“I am ready to lead you today as I did then. I will fulfill my responsibility without failure. I believe that the wise people who love the country and are ready to take responsibility for future generations will continue to support me and my Government in achieving our goals,” the President said.
President Rajapaksa said during the previous Government’s tenure from 2015 to 2019, there were no natural disasters or global crises such as Covid-19. However, simply because of the failure of the State administration, the economy of our country began to collapse without a just cause.
By 2019, the country’s economic growth rate slowed down to 2.1 percent. The debts of the country had increased to Rs. 13,000 billion from Rs. 7,400 billion. The tax burden on the people had doubled. The rupee destabilised and the prices of commodities skyrocketed. Export earnings had declined and foreign reserves had depleted. “I acquired an economy that was in ruins. However, we understood that reality well and accepted that responsibility with a plan.”
The President said one of the weaknesses of our Government was that our development work was not properly communicated to the people. In this context, the people witnessed only problems through media platforms. Only questionable events were discussed on social media.
Therefore, no one talked about the benefits to the country and the people from the development projects launched by the Government amid the Covid-19 crisis.
The President said 6.9 million people of this country approved the promise to move away from the use of chemical fertiliser and direct the country to the use of organic fertiliser. “Therefore, I am committed to fulfilling that pledge stated in the National Policy Framework, “Vistas of Prosperity and Splendour”.
He said as soon as the Government was appointed, steps were taken to provide Government jobs to 65,000 graduates who were unemployed at that time. We have planned to employ 100,000 young people from underprivileged and financially challenged families under the Multi-Task Force Department.
Although the schools were often closed due to the pandemic in the past, we have made great strides in distance education and have continued to provide educational facilities that children need. Tens of thousands of schools have been provided with fibre optic internet connections. More schools will be provided with this facility. There are 373 national schools and 1,000 more will be elevated to national school level, he said.