July 14, Anuradhapura: MP Tissa Attanayake, the general secretary of Sri Lanka’s opposition United National Party (UNP) yesterday blamed the government for appointing another minister ignoring trade unions’ demand to increase salaries by 5,000 rupees.

Speaking at an election rally in Anuradhapura yesterday, the MP said the government is acting with total disregard of the people.

“This government does not value public for even a penny, there was a strike recently, they say now a labour leader is in power, Public servants must not forget what this so called labour leader had done against their strike,” he said.

“Without giving the 5,000 rupee salary increase what did he do- he appointed another minister,” he added.

Attanayake revealed that the public is annually spending 2.2 billion rupees to maintain the ministers and another 740 million to maintain the President.

President Rajapaksa recently appointed MP Geethanjana Gunawardena as a non cabinet minister as he stepped down from the post of deputy speaker of the parliament. Minister Geethanjana Gunawardena told media that he resigned from his post on “ethical grounds” as his brother Dinesh Gunawardena became the chief whip for the government.

Speaking at the meeting, opposition leader Ranil Wickremasinghe said that the UNP must win this election with a great majority. Otherwise, he said that Mahinda Rajapaksa would claim another “peoples’ mandate” for him to destroy the country’s economy.