Lankan parliament approves 2019 budget

The Sri Lankan parliament on Tuesday approved the budget for 2019, which had been delayed for four months due to a constitutional coup triggered by President Maithripala Sirisena dismissing premier Ranil Wickremesinghe.

The budget was passed with 119 votes in the 225-member house. The main Tamil party, TNA, voted in favour of the budget, while Sirisena's SLFP party abstained from voting.

The budget was due in Novemeber last year, but it was scuttled after Sirisena sacked Wickremesinghe on October 26, triggering the island's worst consitutional crisis, which lasted nearly three months and was restored only after the intervention of the Supreme Court.

Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was appointed as prime minister by Sirisena in the October 26 coup, and his supporters opposed the budget, accusing the government of heaping more tax burdens on people.

Significantly, Ceylon Workers' Congress (CWC), the trade union-cum- political party representing plantation workers of Indian origin and was acting as an ally of Sirisena, supported the budget.

Addressing the parliament, Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera said, "We have to end the culture of dependence and we have tried to develop enterprise to give independence to public through the budget proposals."