{"id":65967,"date":"2017-05-09T16:28:50","date_gmt":"2017-05-09T23:28:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=65967"},"modified":"2017-05-09T16:28:50","modified_gmt":"2017-05-09T23:28:50","slug":"rs-1-2-bn-allocated-for-ministers-luxury-vehicles-in-2017-alone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/05\/09\/rs-1-2-bn-allocated-for-ministers-luxury-vehicles-in-2017-alone\/","title":{"rendered":"Rs 1.2 bn allocated for ministers\u2019 luxury vehicles in 2017 alone"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>By Shamindra Ferdinando\u00a0Courtesy The Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span class=\"article_date\">May 9, 2017, 10:41 pm<\/span><br \/>\nThe national economy was deteriorating at an alarming rate as revealed by the latest Central Bank annual report, but the ruling coalition had presented three supplementary budgets amounting to staggering Rs 1.2 bn to acquire more super luxury vehicles for politicians and officials this year alone, JO heavyweight Prof. G.L. Peiris said yesterday.<\/p>\n<p>Addressing the media at Punchi Borella, Prof. Peiris attacked the controversial process of presenting supplementary estimates for the benefit of politicians and officials.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.island.lk\/modules\/modPublication\/article_title_images\/1648688327rs.jpg\" alt=\"article_image\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The media was told the circumstances under which the government presented two supplementary estimates in March and one in May this year. Among those who had been named as the beneficiaries of Rs 329 mn supplementary estimate presented in May is Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe\u2019s Parliamentary Secretary, Prof. Peiris said.<\/p>\n<p>The former External Affairs Minister pointed out that a new post had been created to accommodate a person on the Prime Minister\u2019s staff at the taxpayers\u2019 expense.<\/p>\n<p>Comparing a range of economic indicators given in the latest Central Bank publication with that of previous years, Prof. Peiris painted a bleak picture of the national economy.<\/p>\n<p>JO member Peiris said that President Maithripala Sirisena had admitted Sri Lanka\u2019s foreign reserves were down to USD 5 bn<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Shamindra Ferdinando\u00a0Courtesy The Island May 9, 2017, 10:41 pm The national economy was deteriorating at an alarming rate as revealed by the latest Central Bank annual report, but the ruling coalition had presented three supplementary budgets amounting to staggering Rs 1.2 bn to acquire more super luxury vehicles for politicians and officials this year [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-106"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65967\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}