400 million more dumped for new PC polls

With government coffers drying up, the Treasury is looking for ways to find another Rs.400 million to hold the Central Provincial and the Sabaragamuwa Council Elections, finance sources say.
The recently held Eastern Provincial Council election and Eastern local government elections cost the government nearly Rs 260 million.
Meanwhile the government also raised a syndicate loan of US$150 million from the international money market.
Earlier the government borrowed US 500 million and US$ 50 million at a high commercial rate from international banks.
“When people are wondering how to survive due to the soaring food and oil prices, burdening people with another Rs.400 million debt is a case of sending them from the frying pan to the fire’’, JVP Spokesman Vijitha Herath said.
He said that those two Councils were elected for four years but the Government got the Chief Ministers to propose their dissolution purely for petty political reasons. .
“We are trying our best to block these elections by taking legal action as the people of this country cannot be burdened with unnecessary expenses’’, Herath said.
Meanwhile, the opposition UNP filed two petitions in the Supreme Court against the dissolution of the two provincial councils last Friday.