Jaffna to tighten belt

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 May 1998, 23:59 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Government (SLG) has ordered a ten percent cut on all expenditure of central government departments functioning in the Jaffna District, as well as those coming under Northeast Provincial Council (NEPC), said sources in Jaffna.

These cutbacks apply to all departments and is across the board affecting all categories of expenditure. Even the Jaffna Kachcheri and the Planning Secretariat are affected.

Senior officials in Jaffna are dissatisfied with this decision because the money already voted for the enormous task of reconstruction, rehabilitation and resettlement in Jaffna, as well as the funds for the day to day running of institutions, is grossly inadequate. A 10% cut would only make it worse, said sources.

Though SLG and NEPC institutions receive funding from Ministry of Finance, substantial amounts of money for development of Jaffna will be channeled directly for the reconstruction and rehabilitation projects in the area by overseas donor governments and NGOs.

The local government bodies which were elected recently faced a dearth of funding for their work and insisted that they be allocated their quotas before they began functioning.