Finland Times

 

Chairman of the party Jutta Urpilainen speaking at SDP's labor movement programme in Tampere on Saturday. Photo - STR/Lehtikuva.

The Finance Minister, Jutta Urpilainen on Saturday said that the government would not compromise with the smooth activities in the health and education sectors, despite taking expenditure cut policy in various sectors.

 

“Schools and healthcare are the basic sectors in a welfare country. Improvement of these sectors will be continued uninterruptedly, even if the economic situation is bad,” said Urpilainen, also the chair of the Suomen Sosialidemokraattinen Puolue (Social Democratic Party), the second largest component of the six-party alliance government.

 

The minister made the remarks while addressing a programme organised in observance of a labour movement occasion in Tampere.

 

Pointing out the increased responsibility of the municipal authorities, the finance minister said that the government has undertook scrutiny to find out less important tasks of the municipalities.

 

“The ministry is scheduled to present before the minister a report including the list of the useless activities of the municipalities,” said Urpilainen, adding that the report would help to remove the useless tasks from the municipalities’ responsibility.

 

Leaders of the party at the programme. Photo-STR/Lehtikuva.

She also said that her party SDP would launch on-line survey where people can report about the useless activities and responsibilities of the municipalities.

 

The SDP chair urged the party men to play active role in the process, otherwise the process would be dominated by other political parties.

 

Speaking on the occasion, the chairman of the SDP parliamentary group, Jouni Backman opposed the government move to ease tax and narrowing down the activities in public sectors.

 

“My suggestion is different. We have to increase the employment rate so that the people will get ability to pay more tax,” said Backman, adding that if the earning is more, there would be no problem to pay more tax.

 

The topics of the discussions in the programmes were among others Nordic welfare, the history of labour movement and the writer Pentti Haanpää.

 

The SDP ministers also visited market places and fair at Tammela, Hervanta and Tesoma in the area.