Sri Lanka makes mini-budget till May 2020 under Presidential powers

[The Invisible]

ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka has made a three month mini-budget running from March to May 2020, using constitutional powers given to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa after parliament was dissolved as the country remains gripped by Coronavirus.

Sri Lanka began 2020 with a 4-month mini-budget or vote-on-account running up to April passed by the last parliament.

The current budget under President’s powers coming from section 150 of the constitution would run from March 06, before the term of the earlier vote-on-account ends and run till the end of May.

The national budget department in a circular to spending units said summary of estimates
for each Ministry and spending agency are allocated for the next three months incorporating balance provisions of the Vote on Account 2020.

The allocations including debt repayments total 1,224.8 billion rupees, made up of 713 billion in current spending and 511 billion in capital spending, which also involves debt rollovers.

The Department of Treasury operations had been allocated a total of 628.5 billion rupees, involving 268.4 billion in recurrent spending and 360.1 billion rupees of capital spending.

The ministry of health had been allocated 63.3 billion rupees.

Sri Lanka’s army, navy and air force had been allocated 68.2 billion rupees.

Sri Lanka has a large public service, with around half the tax rupee collected from the people going for salaries, wages and pensions of state workers.

Last week the President also allocated 500 million rupees for anti-Coronavirus activities though the military and other agencies mobilized for the task have underlying funding from budget.