Defence expenditure rises

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 September 1998, 18:59 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Minister for Education, Higher Education and Government whip placed before the parliament today a supplementary estimate of 12.2 billion Sri Lankan rupees for defence expenditure.

He told the house the additional funds are required for the military campaign in the Vanni to open the highway to Jaffna.

The 12.2 billion rupees is required in addition to the 46.2 billion allocated for defence expenditure in the 1998 budget. The supplementary estimate will be taken up for approval in the house on a later date.

The government passed a supplementary estimate of 800 million rupees for defence expenditure earlier in July this year. It also decided to raise another 800 million from the defence levy.

The Sri Lankan government's total defence expenditure for 1998 will therefore be 60 billion rupees. Most of this money has been spent on the 16 month old massive military operation to open the highway to Jaffna through the Vanni region which is under the control of the Liberation Tigers.

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