Finance Minister comes out with ‘no handouts’ Budget with a vision

Finance Ministers usually find their hands tied when presenting the budget in the eve of elections. But Minister Mangala Samaraweera came out of the shell with a vision for the country highlighting schemes that would be launched by the government shortly.

Minister Samaraweera after completing three decades in politics presented the 2019 budget in Parliament on Tuesday offering benefits for the needy for their upkeep and assisting youths, to stand up and start-up for the country.

He told a media conference in Colombo on Thursday that Budget 2019 was not prepared while targeting the elections but with the aim of driving entrepreneurship and private enterprise, while preserving the rights of the marginalised and the most vulnerable.

“In fact, what is in front of us is not an economic crisis, but economic challenges. We took measures to reset the 52-day damage caused by the government that came to power on 26th October,” he added.

The Budget 2019 has failed to address these economic challenges as its revenue proposals cannot generate sufficient cash for the state coffers making it impossible for the government to function, economic experts and veteran politicians claimed.

General Secretary of the Sri Lanka Communist Party ( SLCP), D. E. W. Gunasekera told the Business Times that there was no proper plan and sufficient revenue proposals in the budget although it has allocated billions of rupees for massive loan schemes and development projects.

Revenue proposals cannot match the expenditure proposals indicated in the budget, he said adding that expenditure has been increased to eye wash the people.

Under the present economic situation, tax revenue should be raised significantly to meet the revenue this year.

The tax revenue will be increased to Rs. 2.07 trillion from Rs.1.71 trillion last year, a senior tax expert who wished to remain anonymous told the Business Times.

Sri Lanka will have to spend Rs. 2 trillion in debt servicing in 2019 and the country’s revenue will be slightly over Rs. 2 trillion he said adding that any revenue slippage will affect government’s spending on public services.

No prudent action has been taken by the government to bring down the sky rocket- ing cost of living and the increase in prices of goods and services as a result of high cost of imports, increase in interest rates and tax expenditure of local producers and service providers.

Although a Rs. 3000 rupee allowance was proposed in the budget for around 1.4 million public sector employees, it has failed provide any concessions or direct employers to increase the salaries of 3.5 million private sector workers, Inter Company Employees Union ( ICEU) President Wasantha Samarasinghe said.

The UNF government has also neglected the wellbeing of self employees numbering 3.3 million, he said.

Although, the government has proposed to borrow around Rs. 2 trillion to bridge the budget deficit, 50 percent of it has to be used for debt servicing he added.