Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) national organiser and MP Namal Rajapaksa has accused the government of failing to deliver a pre-election promise to remove Value Added Tax from school equipment and essential health foods.
“When they were coming to power they said they would remove VAT on school equipment and on essential foods for health. That still has not been done,” he said.
He was speaking during a discussion in Parliament on Thursday alongside MPs D.V. Chanaka and Chanaka Madugoda.
The charge
Rajapaksa said the government had not implemented any successful programme to control the cost of living, bring it to a bearable level, reduce what families spend on schoolchildren’s education, or strengthen the household economy. He put inflation at above 8 percent and said it would rise again this month.
He contrasted that with the President’s statement that no tax had been increased and no new tax introduced during his term. Instead, Rajapaksa said, VAT had been applied to ordinary people’s bank accounts and interest income, vehicle taxes had been raised, and taxes imposed on the IT sector, advisory services and consultancies.
On technology policy, he said the government had set out to build a large economy centred on information technology — an aim he said the SLPP shares. “But what did they do? They slapped VAT on people in the IT sector who scrape together whatever they can earn, with no support from the government.”
The inflation figure and the characterisation of the government’s tax record are Rajapaksa’s own, made in his capacity as an opposition MP, and are not independently verified here. No government response was carried in the source report.
