Prime minister: The economy and the financial position passed down to us was pathetic
COLOMBO: The Appropriation Bill for the year 2020 was passed in Parliament on Thursday without a vote.
Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, who also holds the finance portfolio, presented the second reading of the Appropriation Bill 2020 to parliament.
“The economy and the financial position passed down to us was pathetic,” the prime minister said in his speech.
The budget debate followed the presentation of the bill.
The second reading was passed without a vote after the objections of the opposition were recorded.
The third reading of the 2020 Appropriation Bill was also passed without a vote.
The Appropriation Bill for 2021 is due to be presented to Parliament by the prime minister on Nov. 17 and the budget debate will continue until Dec. 10.
The prime minister also made the following remarks on Thursday:
“If I may begin with the income-expenditure gap, the budget deficit which my government brought down to 5.7 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2014, has increased to over 9.6 percent of the GDP by 2019.
“In fact this is more than the budget deficit recorded of 7 percent when I assumed office in 2005.
“When I presented the budget in 2014 for the year 2015, the targeted direction was to bring the budget deficit to 4 percent by 2020 while making the country free of poverty and become a high middle income country.
“A main feature of bridging the budget deficit in the recent years is the non-settlement of dues to suppliers and beneficiaries from whom the government had procured goods and services.
“Such outstanding unpaid bills amounted to Rs.243 billion, while the foreign debt financed expenditure amounted to Rs.212 billion remained unaccounted due to the approved borrowing limit being exceeded, resulted in the reported budget deficit for 2019, not reflecting the actual fiscal position.
“The unreported government expenditure included an outstanding amount of Rs.23.9 billion for fertilizer, Rs. 31.4
billion for the purchase of medicine, Rs.119 billion for the construction industry, Rs.45.8 billion for elders’ interest subsidy and Rs. 22.1 for services made available to Ministries and Departments. All of this I see as a dereliction of responsibility in fiscal management,” he said.