Finance and Media Minister Mangala Samaraweera will present an interim budget to parliament today, which will cover spending for the first four months of 2019. The new cabinet of ministers yesterday approved a Vote on Account submitted by Minister Mangala Samaraweera soon after the new cabinet was set up.
This is to avoid impending shut down of the government as there is no budget passed for 2019, following the political issues took place between October 26 and December 16.
The vote on account will have allocations for Rs. 480 billion of current spending and Rs. 310 billion of capital spending. The vote-on-account will also have provisions for Rs. 970 billion in debt service, the Finance Ministry said.
Sri Lanka has to repay a billion dollar sovereign bond in January 2019, as well as rollover domestic and multilateral foreign debt.
Economists say, the borrowing options following the downgrading of Sri Lanka’s ratings, as a result of unfavourable political situation during the last several weeks, would be not ‘so easy’ as the interest rates would be higher.
Minister Samaraweera was to present budget proposals for 2019 in early November. However, a political setback occurred with the removal of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on October 26, two weeks before the budget for 2019 was to be presented to parliament.
President Maithripala Sirisena appointed 28 ministers as well as Prime Minister Wickremesinghe as National Policies and Economic Affairs on Thursday.
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