SL Parliament extends state of Emergency

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 October 2010, 04:50 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Parliament Tuesday adopted the motion moved by its Prime Minister to extend the state of emergency for another month by ninety votes. 118 parliamentarians of the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) and its constituent parties voted for the motion. The members of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) voted against the motion. The main opposition United National Party (UNP) parliamentarians abstained from voting. State of emergency is being extended every month by the parliament since August 2005.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka Prime Minister D. M Jayaratne presented the Appropriation bill for 2011 in parliament.

According to the Appropriation Bill the projected expenditure of the government for economic development for 2011 is to be Rs 75.2 billion while the defense expenditure is to be Rs 9.7 billion. Expenditure for health is projected to be Rs 62.2 billion. The amount allocated for the President is to be Rs 2.2 billion while Rs 1.5 billion is to be allocated for Parliament.