A ‘People’s Budget’ with surprise benefits for all: Finance Minister

The forthcoming budget, which is to be presented on November 10, will be a ‘people’s budget’ incorporating ideas and proposals by people from all corners of the country, the Department of Government Information said.

The Ministry of Finance had received over 2,200 proposals from people in all sectors of the economy - from trade unions, trade chambers, the corporate sector, companies and individual firms.

Minister of Finance Ravi Karunanayake had also visited several of the provinces - including the areas of Mavil Aru in Trincomalee, Polonnaruwa and Galle and several other districts - to obtain first hand information from the people there, on their expectations and needs to improve their livelihood. 

Further the minister held discussions with trade union representatives and others who represent various sectors of the economy such as tourism, the poultry industry, vehicle imports, trade and industry in Colombo and the provinces.

This is also the first time in the history of budget making that the Finance Ministry obtained the services of academics to conduct a systematic survey on the needs of the people: Academics from ten national universities conducted surveys at the 332 Divisional Secretariat divisions and handed over the results of their surveys to the Ministry. 

“The budget with the incorporation of the proposals from the people and the government policy of transforming the country into a manufacturing economy will have many surprises beneficial to all and the concessions given by way of price reduction of essential goods and services will continue unabated,” the Finance Minister said.

The Finance Minister also said that all proposals were being studied before finalizing the budget as the government had adopted a bottom up approach to make the budget a reality - imperative to maintain macro economic variables.

The bottom up approach makes the budget making process easier as financial allocations to line ministries are made on an incremental basis taking into consideration the previous allocation, irrespective of if the projects implemented were beneficial to the people or not, or if it had brought any return on investment.

Karunanayake also said that the government had decided to discontinue the system of incremental budget allocation from this year on, and instead all ministries have been allocated funds on zero-based budget proposals put forward by the ministries, in accordance with the government’s national economic priority plans.

Accordingly, all ministries had to submit their annual action plans before finalizing the allocations and they would be required to strictly adhere to and monitor implementation of the plan.

The Finance Minister said that as Sri Lanka aspires to become a higher middle-income country, it would need to adjust its development model with the intention of having increased per capita income and lowering the fiscal deficit to 3.5 % of the GDP by year 2020.

Accordingly, the minister said that the government, instead of hanging on mere slogans, would through the forthcoming budget make available financial allocations to all line ministries based on their action plans to achieve the government’s policies of

1. Generating one million job opportunities

2. Enhancing income levels

3. Developing rural economies

4. Ensuring land ownership to rural and estate sectors, the middle class and government employees and 

5.Creating a wide and a strong middle class without any restrictions.