NewsCurry Breaking news and serving it up in pieces
President Maithripala Sirisena today blamed the autocorrect function on his phone, saying that he meant to wish the people of Sri Lankan a ‘Preposterous New Year’ in his Avurudu text message as a result of the increase in VAT that they are going to have to shoulder, instead of the ‘Prosperous New Year’ that was actually sent out.
In his post-Avurudu statement, President Sirisena said, “I still haven’t got the hang of using a mobile phone as I only recently acquired one. Generally whenever I need to get hold of someone I just summon them and they turn up cause anyone can be appointed a minister at any point in my administration, often for no apparent reason. But my head of communications said I should start using a phone to engage with the public. No one told be about ‘autocorrect’ so I just typed the message and sent it. I later realised that of course the public will not be able to enjoy a ‘Prosperous New Year’ as we had planned to increase taxes. However we waited until the auspicious time to make the announcement, which was in the middle of a long weekend and on a public holiday when most people are full of Kiribatha and Rasa Kavili.”
“Those of you who want to mark the occasion of the VAT increase are asked to dress up in protest gear, face Parliament and let anger boil over at midnight on the second of May.” he added.
Despite the formal announcement, uncertainty over the VAT increase remains at 100% as a result of several contradictory statements made by Government Minsters over the last few week.
