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PRESIDENT RAJAPAKSA IN AN OBVIOUS REFERENCE TO SUPREME COURT DECISION SAYS PETROL USED ONLY BY 4 PERCENT OF THE POPULATION

(By Walter Jayawardhana)

President Mahinda Rajapaksa in an obvious reference to the Supreme Court decision to reduce the price of petrol said petrol is being used by only four percent of the population who own cars.

He said 92 percent of the people who use public transport and others who use other petroleum to light their homes are under privileged people who use other fuels like diesel and kerosene and those fuels are already subsidized.

He said taxes are necessary to run the government and luxury cars are taxed 500 percent , cigarettes and arrack are taxed 300 percent while whiskey is taxed 450 percent.

If someone is going to ask for a formula for such items and reduce the prices what would be the plight of the country, the President asked addressing the country’s political leaders, religious leaders, and higher officials at the Presidential secretariat.

He told the distinguished gathering that the taxes collected by such measures are spent to pay the massive bills of free education and free health services. “Those funds go up to pay up the free uniforms and books for the school children and other service for the poor,” the President said.

His responsibility is to do justice to the many and protect the motherland , the President said. Not one item like petrol but all aspects of a country have to be looked into, the President said.

President Rajapaksa threatened to reimpose the ban on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as a terrorist movement if they are not ready to release the innocent Tamil people they are imprisoning in war zones to the government held areas and safety . He said the those Tamil civilians are being held as a human shield by the terrorists.

In 1983 the LTTE was first banned in under Emergency reulaions. The ban was revoked when the regulation was withdrawn in 1987. The ban was re-imposed in January 1998 after a LTTE attack on the Buddhist Temple of the Tooth in Kandy. It was revoked in 2002 after the signing of the Norwegian-brokered ceasefire agreement under the government of Ranil Wickramasinghe..

President Rajapaksa said, “'Failure to do this would lead the government proscribing the LTTE and they (rebels) will face all its consequences as a terrorist organization thereafter.”

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