The third Budget of the consensual government led by President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe will be presented in Parliament this afternoon.
The Budget for the fiscal year of 2018 will be presented by Minister of Finance and Mass Media Mangala Samaraweera.
Proceedings of the House will commence at 3pm.
The Cabinet of Ministers last month approved the 2018 Appropriation Bill with the estimated expenditure of the government for the period beginning from the 1st of January 2018 and ending on the 31st of December 2018 to be presented before Parliament.
According to the bill, the government’s estimated expenditure for the 2018 fiscal year was set at 3,982 billion rupees. The expected income for 2018 was reportedly 2,175 billion rupees.
The debate on the second reading will take place on the 10th, 11th, 13th, 14th, and 15th of November while the Committee Stage Debate will be held from the 16th of November.
The vote on the third reading of the Budget will be taken on the 9th of December.
According to the Appropriation Bill the government’s recurrent expenditure stands at 1,308.9 billion rupees, capital expenditure 668 billion rupees, total income on foreign grants 2,175 billion rupees and loans to be obtained from foreign sources 1,813 billion rupees.
Detailing the process of the preparation of the performance budget from next year, Minister Mangala Samaraweera said priority would be given to ongoing and foreign funded projects where Key Performance Indicators based measurable outcomes are identified for each project.
Furthermore, the Minister said capital expenditure projects that have been earmarked for implementation by the National Planning Department for each Ministry would also be given priority provided the plans of such projects carry out KPIs.
Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera said the government expects improvements in the performance of the public finance management for the realization of medium term economic growth of around 6 to 7 percent.
