Transport, Highways and Mass Media Minister Dr. Bandula Gunawardena said Cabinet has approved to pay the monthly salaries of non-executive officers on the due dates and to pay the monthly salaries of executive officers a few days after the due date.
The Minister also stated that the payment of pensions of senior citizens may be delayed by a day or two. The Minister was speaking at the media briefing to announce the Cabinet decisions at the government information department yesterday.
Minister Bandula Gunawardena stated that the Government of Sri Lanka has not been able to meet the mandatory expenditures of the country and stated that the total income in December was only Rs.141 billion.
The minister said that Rs. 88 billion was spent on government employee salaries, Rs.30 billion for pensions and Samurdhi and Rs.6.5 billion fertilizer and Rs.8.7 billion for Medicinal drugs, recurrent expenditure Rs.21 billion. Loan and interest payment (Local and Foreign) Rs.182 billion. This comes to a total of Rs.336.2 billion.
The minister pointed out that if the revenue of the Treasury is Rs.141 billion and the expenditure is Rs.336.2 billion. The total deficit is Rs. 195.2 billion. The problem now is as to how to manage the situation with Rs. 195.2 billion deficit in December.
He said when the Health Minister asked the Cabinet to provide Rs.10 billion for the purchase of essential medicines for government hospitals, as the Treasury could not provide the amount, the Cabinet had proposed to reduce 1 percent of the allocations for Ministries from the budget and give that amount to the Treasury to allocate it for medicine purchases.
According to the order of the President, it was decided in the last Cabinet to cut 5 percent from allocations to ministries and with another 1 percent taken off, the total percentage reduced will come to 6 percent.
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