The Budget 2024 was presented to Parliament by President Ranil Wickremesinghe on November 13.
This is the 78th Budget of Sri Lanka and has been presented under the theme “Prelude to a Balanced Future”. The debate on the second reading of the Budget is currently being held in Parliament, and it will end on November 21.
After the voting of the second reading debate that evening, the committee stage debate which will start on November 22 it will continue until December 13.
The third reading vote will be held on that day. Leaders belonging to various political parties expressed their opinions to Sunday Observer about this year’s Budget proposals.
Translated by Jonathan Frank
A budget that can accelerate a social transformation, a revolution – K.D. Lalkanta, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna Politburo Member
Presenting the budget, President Wickremesinghe said that he will present a revolutionary budget that no government has presented so far. A revolution is a social transformation, a change from where society is to a different place.
At a time when the whole society is aligned with such a need, it must be said that this budget has been rushed to hasten such a transformation and revolution.
The reason is that the need for such social transformation comes when people can no longer live in society. This is an expense that further confirms the impossibility. That is why this budget is a budget that helps social transformation and revolution.
The biggest magic in this budget is taking up half the space of a newspaper’s front page to say that fifty rupees will be given to Government employees. It is understood that there is nothing more important and serious in this.
Not a single word has been spoken about the private sector in this budget.
No matter how many weaknesses there are in some budgets presented before, at the time when the public servant is given a meagre allowance, he requested that his private sector colleagues to consider increasing their salaries in parallel to their increase. But the private sector, which makes up 6.5 million of this budget, has been completely abandoned.
Also, nothing has been said in this budget about the demand of plantation workers for their salary increase, to correct the disparity in retirement salaries caused during the Ranil Wickremesinghe regime in 2016.
The most challenging budget in history – Ranjith Siyambalapitiya, State Minister of Finance
This budget can be called the most challenging budget presented in the history of Sri Lanka. The reason is that it is brought in while the country is recovering from a very unfortunate economic abyss.
We cannot say that we do not have crises even today. But the purpose of this year’s budget was to provide solutions in the face of the huge challenge of dealing with such a situation in the future.
There are two million people who receive Government welfare benefits. In addition, there are about two million people including Government employees, pensioners and the retired community.
Among the 5.5 to six million families in the country, along with the people working in the private sector, about four million are directly expecting relief from the budget.
It is a big challenge to come up with a budget that pleases all these people. But the President, as Finance Minister, accepted all these challenges for the sake of the country and the people and presented the budget this year.
In a situation where none of the leaders of the Opposition came forward to take control of the country, the incumbent President accepted the challenge and the country was saved to this extent and the economy started to move forward. The journey to a bottomless abyss has now been avoided. We should not forget that. Ten thousand rupees is a maximum salary increase. I believe the intelligent civil servant will think positively about it.
The amount of foreign reserves in this country which was 1,898 million dollars in 2022 has grown to 3,500 million dollars by September 2023. Inflation rate in 2023 is 51.7 percent but by September 2023 it is 1.3 percent. We should not forget that the positive aspects of the last budget have influenced the rate of inflation to decrease so much in nine months.
These are just lovely suggestions- Rauf Hakeem, Sri Lanka Muslim Congress MP
Many similar proposals were presented in the last budget as well. But when even 90 percent of those proposals are not fulfilled, it is impossible to hope that these budget proposals will be successful, because money is needed to implement these budget proposals. The President is already saying that our expenses are much higher than our income and our debt burden is huge.
If so, the Government, which is carrying such a debt burden, has many obstacles to implement these budget proposals. Without overcoming those obstacles, it may be difficult to implement any of these budget proposals.
The President spoke some beautiful words in the budget speech. They are just beautiful stories. We do not see a system that can implement them. And such an opportunity cannot be expected in this budget.
A budget geared towards votes – Dr. Harsha De Silva, Colombo District Samagi Jana Balawegaya MP
We have learned one thing from this budget, and that will be an election next year. The President made the budget speech in preparation for that election. When examining this budget in depth, several points emerge. What economic direction should we go? We should go in that direction through a very serious economic reform. It seems that the Government is ready to go that way, but there is a question as to whether it can be implemented. It’s like travelling on a plane; the chances of falling from the sky are very high. Overall, I see this budget as one prepared for an election.
There are even taxes that are not mentioned in the budget speech. A VAT of 18 percent has been imposed on all health equipment. First of all, you need to find out if people can afford to eat three meals, buy medicine and pay the electricity bill. The World Bank has stated that poverty in Sri Lanka has increased from 13 percent to 25 percent. Before the economic killers bankrupted the country, there were 300,000 poor people in the country.
Today, that number has increased by four million. In the budget speech, the President said that the economy has been brought to a certain place from where it was.
People’s cost of living has increased by ninety percent. Everyone is trying to go abroad. If so, what relief will the people get from this budget?
This is not a budget, but a loan- Weerasumana Weerasinghe, Sri Lanka Communist Party Matara District MP
The Budget presented by the President shows very clearly that he is trying to recover this economy according to the same old method used by the leaders who contributed to the destruction of this country’s economy.
That is why this is not a budget but a debt. In these budget proposals, the President never explained, with clear calculations, how the public expenditure will be earned. It is clear that it is not easy to pursue goals based on wrong assumptions.
Even 25 percent of the expected Government revenue in the budget document for the year 2023 is at a level that cannot be achieved at this time.
Despite this, it is clear that without taking any action to implement the proposals presented in the budget document, the same proposals have been presented in a different way as new proposals in this Budget. Therefore, it is also clear that none of those proposals are positive proposals.
Through this Budget, President Ranil Wickremesinghe is trying to accomplish a lot of work that he tried to do but was unable to do during his nearly forty years of political practice. These budgets are strategies that sell and eat what’s available.
This is a Budget that shows the President is good at selling. Although the members of the ruling party tried to say that the granting of land ownership deeds and the granting of freehold rights in Colombo were historic decisions, these two issues will undoubtedly become wrong decisions in this country in the future.
Freehold rights should not be given to create a situation where land can be bought and sold at will or to give the opportunity for the re-emergence of a capitalist class that owns land.
This budget is an attempt by the current President to accomplish what was not possible in 2011 and 2016.
