news

Expect post-election tax shocks if SLPP wins, warns JVP leader

Published

8 months ago

2020/08/4

JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake flanked by NPP National List candidate Tuan K. Azoor and Kalutara District candidate Dr. Nihal Abeysinghe addressing a press conference held at the party headquarters on Sunday

By Saman Indrajith

The government is doing exactly the very obverse of what it had promised to win the presidential election, therefore people should not take the SLPP’s promises seriously, says the JVP.

Addressing the media at the party headquarters, JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake said, on Sunday: “The SLPP came to power promising one law for all, but some persons are above the law. The SLPP has on its platform some characters who have Interpol red alerts against their names. They broke the quarantine laws at many places including the funeral of Minister Arumugam Thondaman. The law was bent to save the person who demolished an ancient royal pavilion at Kurunegala. That is how they maintain the rule of law.”

Dissanayake said that 6.9 million people had voted for the SLPP candidate at the last presidential polls, believing that he would not divest national assets. “There is still no clear statement that it would do away with the Millennium Challenge Corporation compact with the US. People did not vote for the SLPP to sell off the East Container Terminal of the Colombo Port. Trade Unions had to resort to strikes to obtain a promise from the Prime Minister but the problem is far from resolved. There has been a Cabinet paper to demarcate a 10-acre area covering land belonging to the Examinations Department at Malay Street, Police land in the Slave Island

and Air Force premises in adjacent area and to get it under the purview of the Urban Development Authority. We believe that their plan is to sell the entire land off in the near future.”

Dissanayake asked people to brace for massive tax hikes after Aug 5 elections because the SLPP would increase the prices of essential items to raise funds to keep the economy going. “There will be unprecedented price hikes. There will be tax increases. There is a need for a force that could fight against those moves. Only the JVP-led NPP is equal to that task. We’ll have to fight in and outside parliament. We therefore ask the people to cast their votes for the NPP and send as many as NPP members possible to the next parliament.”

NPP National List candidate Tuan K. Azoor and Kalutara District candidate Dr. Nihal Abeysinghe also addressed the press.

Kapruka Advertiesment

Visit Superbox.lk for Online Grocery Shopping in Sri Lanka.

Get deals for Fish & Meat,

Fruit & Vegetables,

Grocery Deals and

Personal Care

news

Six nabbed with over 100 kg of ‘Ice’

Published

3 days ago

2021/04/13

Sahan Weerasooriya

By Norman Palihawadane and Ifham Nizam

The Police Narcotics Bureau (PNB) yesterday arrested six suspects in the Sapugaskanda Rathgahawatta area with more than 100 kilos of Crystal Methamphetamine also known as Ice.

Police Media Spokesman, Deputy Inspector General of Police, Ajith Rohana told the media that the PNB sleuths, acting on information elicited from a suspect in custody had found 91 packets of Ice.

A man in possession of 100 kilos of heroin was arrested in Modera during the weekend and revealed that a haul of Ice had been packed in plastic boxes.

The PNB seized more than 114 kilos of Ice from the possession of a single drug network.

According to the information elicited from the suspects, more than 100 kilos of Ice were found.

The PNB also arrested six persons including two women with 13 kilos of Ice, during an operation carried out in the Niwandama area in Ja-Ela on Sunday.

DIG Rohana said the ice had been packed in small plastic boxes and hidden in two school bags.

news

PM intervenes to iron out differences among coalition partners

Published

3 days ago

2021/04/13

Sahan Weerasooriya

By Norman Palihawadane

Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa yesterday said that he was confident that differences among the constituents of the SLPP coalition as regards the May Day celebrations and the next Provincial Council elections could be ironed out soon.

Leaders of all SLPP allied parties have been invited to a special meeting to be held at Temple Trees with the PM presiding on April 19.

Prime Minister Rajapaksa said it was natural for members of a political alliance to have their own standpoints and views on matters of national importance. “This is due to the different political ideologies and identities. It is not something new when it comes to political alliances world over. In a way, it shows that there is internal democracy within our alliance.

The PM said: “As a result of that the allied parties may express their own views on issues, but that does not mean there is a threat to the unity of the alliance. An alliance is more vibrant and stronger not when all the parties think on the same lines but when the member parties have different ideologies.”

news

Thilo Hoffman remembered

Published

3 days ago

2021/04/13

Sahan Weerasooriya

A copy of the book “Politics of a Rainforest: Battles to save Sinharaja” was handed over to Dominik Furgler, the Swiss Ambassador in Sri Lanka by the author of the book, Dr. Prasanna Cooray at the Swiss Embassy in Colombo last Tuesday, to be sent to the family of the late Thilo Hoffman in Switzerland.

Hoffman, a Swiss national, who made Sri Lanka his second home for six decades, was a pioneering environmental activist who led the battles to save Sinharaja from the front in the early 1970s, abreast with the likes of Iranganie Serasinghe, Kamanie Vitharana, Lynn De Alwis and Nihal Fernando of the “Ruk Rekaganno” fame. That was the era when the trees of Sinharaja were felled for the production of plywood by the then government. Hoffman was also a livewire of the Wildlife and Nature Protection Society (WNPS) for a long time. Hoffman died in 2014 at the age of 92.

The book includes a chapter on Thilo Hoffman.